Tei (悌)
by Nobodythestormcrow
Summary: Tei, fraternal piety. I am the younger sister of Karatachi Yagura, future Yondaime. In between surviving third-class citizenship and helping him with his revolution-slash-election campaign, I also have to survive a Darth Thanos expy for a Sandaime, find a way to not become Haku 0.5, and deal with my chemistry teacher being reborn as Yakushi Nono. And I'm not paid. Figures.
1. Prologue

**Uzushiogakure, Ninth day** **of the Fall**

Idly slipping beneath a kunai, the kunoichi flicked a spinning fuuton at the boy's throat. Killing fuuinjutsu wielders was far easier than most believed, merely a matter of taking them by surprise. They were only mortal, after all. The chuunin was good, but that didn't matter when he had no time to react. Another kill. She moved to aid her comrades (relatively intelligent ones were hard to find, and when you factored in the fact that all three were eye-candy, they were even more irreplaceable), who were preoccupied with a single crimson-haired demon. That was when she heard an ear-splitting screech as the Uzu Jounin her three squadmates were distracting broke free from their harrowing to charge straight at her, leaving the boys frozen in comical positions. She smiled dreamily. Now, that was a fuiinjutsu master. She would be a challenge. How delightful. She drew a katana and faced the Uzumaki.

"You took my son from me, Kiri-nin. The Mist will take your children from you as well!" The witch snarled, recklessly striking at Karatachi Mino, half mad with grief and rage. What the Uzu-nin did not realize was that her opponent was half Uzumaki as well, which made her ideally suited for combat against Uzushiogakure shinobi. Sinking into the same battle-madness as her oponent, Mino bared her teeth in a blood-thirsty grin and struck with a katana.

Parry, lunge, feint, feint, oopsy-daisy didn't dodge, half-hand seals for a raiton, and counter the witch's unfurling scroll with a seal-enhanced katon. Roll, and bring the katana up to block a kunai. Fling it away before it can detonate, swallow the suiton coming her way into a storage seal in her mouth, throw it back with an extra punch, courtesy of the modifications to the seal, use the moment of surprise when the water turned out be corrosive to kawarimi with the rock behind the witch and chop chop! Hot crimson sprayed over her face and neck. She licked her lips, mmmmm, salty and sweet with a metallic tang, perfect.

Taking a moment to savor the rush that was part and parcel of her heritage, she pushed the bloodlust down. "Another for me, bedfellow dearest. A Jounin Sealmaster counts for five points, I believe." The ash-blond Hozuki feigned a shiver, "Beloved, your ability to switch between mad and demure disturbs me." He paused, considering, "And everyone else."

Mino laughed, a beautiful tinkling like a spring flowing over stone, sweet and ladylike. "Then they are undeserving of their hitai-ate-" Whatever she was going to say was lost in piercing sirens.

"Evacuate?" Asked the Hozuki's second, a saner-than-average Jounin.

Mino covered her mouth with a fan produced from a storage seal, and asked, with courtly grace, "Why so twitchy? There is still blood to be drawn, lives to take, seals to steal... Why flee, when by staying here, you may better serve Kiri?"

Then with a gait more concubine than kunoichi, she floated back to the housing line and jumped onto a roof.

Seeing the blank stares, she beckoned with a hint of coyness, before transitioning back to kunoichi-competence. Raising an eyebrow, she asked sharply, "Well? If you're worried, why are you standing there? Come back here."

Her lover snorted, "Listen to the lady, boys." And he sauntered towards her. The other two shinobi followed. Just as they stepped past the sole kunoichi of the squad, Uzushiogakure imploded, sinking down as the sea rushed in to fill its gaps. Ignoring the roaring water beneath her feet as well as her gaping comrades, Mino turned to her captain to continue their conversation.

"Aren't you worried about the witch's curse?" He asked.

"She merely stated the obvious." Mino replied, a serene smile on her face. "I am Karatachi, so my children will be Karatachi as well, and Karatachi spend ourselves in the service of Kiri. If Kiri demands their lives, then their lives Kiri shall have."

"Will you even name our children if they are doomed from birth?"

"Not doomed," the Karatachi said, with an eerie smile and a shake of her head, "honored beyond measure. So of course I will name them."

"Then what will be their names?"

"Ginkanmuri, silver crown, if it's a girl. If it's a boy, I'll name him after the strongest of castles, the Tower, Yagura."


	2. Revolution

故今日之责任，不在他人，而全在我少年。

(gù jīnrì zhī zérèn, búzài tārén, ér quánzài wǒ shàonián)

-《少年中国说》，梁启超

Thus: the responsibility of today, lieth not with others, but with us youths.

-Liang Qichao

* * *

 **Kirigakure 9+ years after the fall. Countdown: 5 years to SWIII**

* * *

I died at my classmate's hands during chemistry class. My chemistry teacher was trying to talk him down when a boy in the back just had to not take the situation seriously, resulting in him snapping, shooting my teacher, and a bullet going through my head as collateral damage.

In death, there was an odd sort of clarity, and though there was no sensation, there was a self. I was aware, though I did not perceive, and despite the absence of contemplation, I understood. Then, I was reborn. You would expect reincarnations to be born sometime sensible, when they could affect the plot. Technically, that is the case for me, though I wish it were otherwise. I was born nine years after the fall of Uzushio, and my brother, four. Symbolic numbers. My brother, Yagura who is ever followed by "Yon", death, and I, born nine years on the dot on the anniversary of a great village's destruction. My mother was the last shinobi to step off Uzushio. It affected her children terribly. My brother is the first perfect Jinchuuriki, or he will become that, whilst I remember a life lived in forests of concrete and steel, fueled by sky-fire tamed at our fingertips.

I am three, and disturbingly enough, fully capable of acting like a near-adult, and expected to do so as well. The reason for this comes from an event half a year ago, when Yagura started monologuing at me. A few of his more memorable quotes include " _We are cursed, you and I, and our fate is a dark one_ ", " _There is no need for two to be worn to the bone, broken and wrung of all value, when one will suffice_ ", " _I love you fiercely, imouto. I do not wish you to bear the weight of a Karatachi-nin's life of service_ ". I could list more, but the most relevant thing about his one-sided conversations was that he was contemplating mercy-sororicide. I didn't want to die again, so I started to desperately improve my speech capabilities. I might have been overreacting-I was two after all.

Shockingly, vocalizing became extraordinarily easy, and I skipped the baby-talk phase to go straight to an adult's vocabulary. Then, the next time Yagura-nii-san started talking at me, I talked back. He reported it to my parents, who weren't surprised. Apparently, the Karatachi did not so much have a bloodline as the product of generations of deliberate breeding that resulted in prodigies produced at the same rate Hoshigaki produced chakra monsters, and Kaguya birthed, I quote, "bloodthirsty savages". My father is the bastard of Hozuki Gengetsu, Nidaime Mizukage, and the reason he married into the Karatachi-a Third-Caste family-was because mother was one of the most distinguished heroes of the Purge of Uzushio, making the match equal in the eyes of the populace, if not in official stature. We both inherited the pupiless pink eyes of our mother and the straight ash-blond hair of our father.

I am the youngest child of a family that is not a clan, a Third-Caste under heavy scrutiny. I can not be allowed to incriminate my family in any way, nor bring disgrace upon it, lest I doom us all to a bloody purge. To give you an idea of what I underwent, here is an extract of one of my okaa-san's lectures: _Perfection is the least of what is expected of Karatachi. You will transcend your limits or die in the process. You will be perfect in your loyalty, perfect in your ability, perfect in your self-discipline. The consequence of failure is death. For you, for your brother, and for all who share your blood._

 _One can only survive if one is of value, but if one is of value, then one must have ability, yet if one has ability then one will be a threat, and if one is a threat, then one will be threatened. If one is to survive the turbulent changes that so characterize Chigiri no Sato, one must appear controllable and controlled._

* * *

As I have said, I am three. My name is Karatachi Ginkanmuri, named after the _shogi_ castle "Silver Crown". My brother, who is five years my senior, is eight, and in his second year at the Academy He's already jumped a grade twice, so he's a Fourth Year. Come to think of it, that might have been why he monologued at me a half year ago, because that was when the Academy was teaching euthanasia. As to why I know this, it's because he's teaching me everything he has learnt at school, We're still at the catching-up phase of my education, though, from my estimates, it will be done in another week. After that, my brother will progress to teaching me what the Academy hasn't covered yet, which he also knows. The point is to ensure that by the time I enter the Academy, I will have become sufficiently proficient at all subjects to spend exactly half a year in every grade, and graduate in three years, having interacted with six classes during my education, and made connections in each. It's Yagura-nii-san who's teaching me and not my parents because A) "教，然后知困" a should-be-Chinese proverb meaning teach to find out what you don't understand, AKA teaching me is his version of revisioning and self-examining for weaknesses in knowledge. B) neither of my parents are retired. And C)nii-san is using tutoring as an excuse to plot with me.

That brings us to my brother, and how he is the most disturbing nii-san in the world. Sororicidal tendencies aside, his Uchiha-Itachi-like traits include genius, minor misanthropy, and extraordinary amounts of pressure to represent the family/clan well. He could probably make Chunnin without trouble right now, but due to the importance of making sure we aren't the softest persimmon (in other words, that there are easier targets), he is, like most of us, making connections to make sure purging us is something many people would object to. On the other hand, he is far better at independence and emotional stability than the yet-to-be-born Uchiha clan heir, and most importantly, his reaction to the ever-increasingly stringent expectations of the village has been to set his sights on the Mizukage's seat. Which, on one hand, is better than mercy killing or kin-slaying on orders. But on the other hand, guess who's his partner in crime? His unfortunate imouto, who has been press-ganged into treason.

I am getting ahead of myself. My toddler-hood was plain and boring, or as plain and boring as it could be in the Bloody Mist. Let's start at the beginning of this terrible ordeal that will probably end with me dead, stressed to perpetual insomnia, entering a murder-suicide pact with a megalomaniacal, paranoid, misanthropic and mind-controlled brother, or all of the above.

Yagura-nii-san is jaded, as is expected of a Bloody Mist's citizens. The problem is that he's ahead of the curve, and at the wee age of eight, has started plotting treason. In the search for an accomplice, as in accordance to Kiri's traditions, his sights landed on poor me.

* * *

 **11.5 years after the Fall of Uzushio, 2.5 years to SWIII**

* * *

After sitting down with a notebook and a pen, he paused, looked at me, and said in a passably casual tone, "It hasn't rained yet today, imouto, so the stones by the garden's hedges should be dry. Would you like to see it and have your lessons there? I thought of a game involving the oranges, hand-seals, and reaction speed that I think you will like."

With no reason to refuse, and keeping in mind that he had _threatened to kill me less than a year ago_ , I agreed. So he left his notebook where it was and took my hand. We went up the stairs, careful to stick to the sides so that the stairs didn't squeak into a seal.

I took a step forward. My foot hit air, and with a scream, I fell. Nii-san's hand in mine tightened, and with a heave, he brought me back onto solid ground. His brow furrowed. "I don't remember this being here last time. This must be one of the cyclic traps. A genjutsu's concealing it, but I'm not sure if dispelling it will trigger another defensive mechanism. This is a Genin's way, so there won't be anything lethal here, but still, stand behind me, imuoto."

I obeyed. Apparently, nii-san has protective instincts in him, that's a relief. Or he might just not want to explain anything to our parents. That was always a concern. Shaping his hands into the dispelling seal, he snapped out "KAI!"

The genjutsu dissolved, revealing a gaping pit. I leaned forward into the darkness. …was that… Devil's Snare? A tangle of plant matter moved sluggishly, giving off an aura of deliberate, predatory, sloth. Beside me, Yagura gave the chasm an appraising look, and said, "It's close enough to jump. The walls might be trapped, so best to take the leap."

I reached up for his arms, and he swung me onto his back. "Lucky that I weigh less than a rucksack, nii-san." I commented cheerfully, because he had just proven that he cared about me, which considering that he was _planning sororicide just a while back_ , might prove to be essential to my survival. Taking a moment to rebalance, he bounded over the Devil's Snare and landed solidly on the other side. I saw a scroll drop open to my left. "DODGE!" I screamed. Nii-san had already dropped into a roll, and I barely reacted in time to let go and use my momentum to roll forward. The senbon from the scroll passed harmlessly overhead. Nii-san grimaced, but stood up carefully, eyes darting about looking for more traps. Without warning, he grabbed me and ran full tilt into a wall.

I didn't have time to scream as we burst out of into open air, falling into a suspiciously deep decorative pond, and then he was pulling me back into his arms as he walked to shore. Smoothly running through the handseals for a dehydration jutsu, Yagura dried both of us off, sending the resultant water back into the pond with a flick of his wrist.

"Nii-san?" I asked, suspiciously. "This garden is pretty—" and it was, with dark green bushes covered in flowers with slender white petals, heavy with fruit, both fuzzy green balls and ripe orange ones hanging on elegantly twisting thorny branches, various other trees and flowers scattered throughout, and a twisting stream that flowed into the pond we just got out of, "—but why are there traps guarding this place?"

"They are a minor obstacle for Genin-rank and above," Yagura-nii answered, leading me towards a pile of rocks by a bush, "but they can provide sufficient deterrent for anyone too young to set foot in a training ground, and they do encourage habitual situational awareness."

I looked up at him, craning my neck (since I didn't even come up to his waist). "Should I be here then?"

He shrugged, gesturing to the empty garden, the mist rising from the water, and bushes, which seemed to have moved from where they were when we entered. "This is the Garden of Dreams. No one comes here during the day, and only a few at night." He pressed a hand to the thorns, letting them dig in and draw blood. His demeanor changed. Looking at me unblinkingly, he said, "We will not be overheard now. I brought you here, imouto, because we need to talk."

I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged my legs. It was a bad habit for a shinobi, to sit in a way that hampered one's reaction time, so our parents were trying to break me of it. I inclined my head. "Of what?"

He closed his eyes for a moment. Then, with a smoothness that bespoke of preparation, he began. "Our grandparents' generation was the first to live in Kiri. They were generally career chunnin, with a Jounin or two. By our mother's generation, over half of active-service Karatachi were B-Rank or above. Mother was one of the vanguard during the Purge of Uzushio, awarded the title Crimson Kinslayer, equal to the Nidaime's bastard son. She spent five years in the Academy. Now, children are born like clockwork with at least three years between each, so that they can influence the most people, and because we graduate in three. Cousin Suisen made Tokubetsu Jounin half a year after he made Chuunin, and Bara halved the time again."

"I see." I said blandly. "and for what reason do you speak of this to me, nii-san?"

"The noose is tightening, imouto, as Kiri demands more and more of us. We can still give it, but every generation must be better than the last. Mother could hold back a little, and our cousins may fade into the background, but we _can_ _'_ _t_. We are the greatest of our generation, and we must exceed the heroes of Uzushio's purge and the Second War. We are cursed to greatness, but what of the next? We spend ourselves, burn with increasing swiftness to be brighter than the last. If we succeed in our excellence, how will the next generation surpass us?"

"A cup over a candle," I summarized quietly, "even as we burn, we make our doom. We rebelled once, nii-san, and failed, which is why we are Caste, forced to excel and push ourselves to breaking point. And yet you wish to try _again_?"

He nodded, holding my gaze steadily. "You see the situation we find ourselves in. We have but two choices now: to either allow ourselves to burn with ever-increasing brilliance until we gasp our last breath and sputter out, or to gather the remaining air and what fuel we may in a flare of concentrated intensity to burn through our glass cage."

"The highest power." I looked at him askance, though in retrospect, I should have seen it coming. "Mizukage. You want to try for the hat. Why are you telling me this?"

"As dictated by convention, I will prefer having an accomplice. You are considered under my influence." he continued calmly, "Our family is not without internal struggle, and to countenance treason is courting death, even if they reported it to the Sandaime." He was using _Sandaime_ , not Mizukage anymore. I _should_ _have_ _noticed_ the change, and realized his ambitions sooner, although what would I have done then?

"But a man need not keep the pacts made with kine. They would kill me rather than report me or risk everything on a nebulous chance at success. You will not. In the event of discovery and failure, you will suffer the consequences alongside me either way. Depending on your age and skill at the point, you will either be executed or conditioned to obedience using unpleasant measures, and used as an expendable resource. Therefore, it is in your best interests to support me whole-heartedly in this endeavor. You are no less talented than I, imouto, and it is always best to have a partner in crime." He smiled with black humor, before his expression turned comically sour at my posture. "Crouch or sit, keep your—"

"—my legs free. I know, nii-san." I snorted, but didn't comply. There was a sense of safety to being curled in a ball. I take a deep breath, because my brother is plotting treason and if he is found out then I will be dragged down with him and I don't want to get arrested and convicted of treason in the _Bloody Mist_ , AKA where _Shimura Danzo_ got his ideas from. I took a deep breath, _like ripping off a band-aid_. "A secret for a secret then, for we need every advantage we can get, nii-san. I lived a life before this one. You should know this, instead of assuming that I am a genius."

"Aaah." Yagura said, "I suspected something like this. It would explain your astonishing proficiency in certain areas despite deplorable deficiency in others. I find it irritating that you need not puzzle through the complexities of parabolic arcs, or the basics of algebra."

His casualness was infectious. "Math is eternal, languages are not." I grumbled, "I spoke a phonetic language before. Numbers are easier in this language than in English, but the amount of stuff I have to memorize is _not_." I was a toddler. A Karatachi toddler, but still, a toddler just out of the terrible twos. "The most salient point is, nii-san, is that in my previous life, this one was part of a series of stories detailing a protagonist of the Leaf as he sought recognition and saved the world. You became the Jinchuuriki as well as Yondaime and was mind-controlled by Uchiha Madara's apprentice, plunging Kiri deeper into Chigiri, by the way. Kiri wasn't the focus of the whole plot, so I don't know how much I can tell you, but information is power, and every little bit helps."

Yagura closed his eyes for a moment. "I see. That would give us an advantage—but that doesn't mean you can slack off!" I pluck an orange from the hedge and lob it at him. He catches it smoothly.

"You are making my point for me." Nii-san drily comments, "But the definition of prodigy is early maturity, and a previous life lived gave you maturity upon birth. You are creative and capable of self-discipline. That is enough to be prodigious, though if you are Karatachi, more will be expected of you. As for now, we should do what I claimed I was planning on teaching you. Handseals on my command while I throw oranges at you. Stop at the last second to catch the orange, toss it back towards me, and continue with handseals. The better you get at transitions between handseals, the easier it will be to learn jutsu—and correct your posture!"

"I have a life-time of bad habits to get over!"

"You only need to put half the effort into theory, it's only fair that you have to double it with practical!"

"That's only a balanced equation if standard's a third practical and two-thirds theory!"

"See what I mean?"

" _Kumo take you!_ _"_


	3. Sins of Parents

_No curse is a curse if it can be made a tool. The sins of the father are a blessing upon the child._

 _-Kiri saying_

* * *

Life while planning a revolution isn't very different from life while not planning a revolution. I learn, practice, exercise, make blood sacrifices to the flying dragon oranges so that I can have a private conversation with my brother and tell him everything I can remember, pretend to be a creepy toddler, join my brother for sealing lessons under kaa-san because sealing is too dangerous to be done without supervision, develop my reserves and start making soft-boiled eggs for breakfast.

The Garden of Dreams is our headquarters. We take advantage of the vines, which either have their own kind of power or have been cultivated with such skill as to form privacy seals. Decades of the illusory arts practiced in the garden had left its mark, blurring reality and dreams (nightmares), as its name suggested.

Of course, we did pretend to do schoolwork, which was a fortunate decision when our father dehydrified out of the decorative pool with a loud shout of "All work and no play makes for dull shinobi!"

In unison, we turn our heads 90 degrees and stare at our excessively dramatic, formerly first-caste father unblinkingly. A moment passed. Then another. This would be an excellent justification for always activating the privacy seals. We were both petty enough and paranoid enough to do so.

It also makes for living shinobi." We countered in sync, voices as bland and unimpressed as we could make them.

He flopped down, liquified, and reconstituted in front of us. "Good memories give you the strength to stand in the face of despair, children. When a cause seems empty and survival meaningless, the memory of a hot drink on a cold day, a lazy morning sleeping in, or sweet dango in a pavilion sheltering you from cool rain can be enough for you to get up again. If you seek a mastery of genjutsu, then you will need those memories to ground you, and with your grandfather and I, you will be expected to continue that legacy."

He ruffled our hair (I made a mental note to get Yagura-nii to braid it). "Think on that, kids, and wash up! We'll be getting ready for Bon, and people will be dancing around Yagura!"

He disappeared. I pricked my arm on a thorn. My brother did too. He made a face and glared at the dissipating wisps of mist. "He may not have left, but this will block him just the same."

"He shunshined away."

"And you do not think it could have been a clone or a genjutsu? _After tou-san was just talking about genjutsu?_ "

"I was a civilian." I reminded him. "And now we have to deal with father's legacy as well as mother's. Do you want the mastery or should I…?"

"That depends," he said blandly, "on whether or not you need an extra incentive to refine your chakra control."

"Boil." I glared at him.

"And that is why you can never poach an egg, only soft-boil one." I lob a fruit at him at chakra-enhanced speeds, he caught it in midair—only barely, I had improved.

* * *

"So, on future career paths. If you are suggesting swordsmen, the only blades I can stand are Nuibari and Kiba, and I don't want an allegedly kami-infused weapon when there's a 'rabbit goddess' sealed in the moon."

"I would have thought that as the legends go, that the seven together can slay a kami would be a mark in their favor, imouto."

I snorted, and replied, "Mother wants to pass on her legacy, and since I look like her, she habitually focuses on me. That includes the Uzushiogakure kenjutsu, which is enough to put me off anything specializing in the sword. You don't need a red-headed Swordswoman, Ameyuri will be enough of a wants-to-change-the-world type to join you if you play your cards right." (Nii-san had struck up a friendship with his classmate).

Ameyuri, according to nii-san, was his opposite. He was blond and Karatachi, and people often forgot that our grandfather was Uzumaki. With crimson hair and no past, there were rumors that Ameyuri was of Uzumaki descent, and it had become something of a sore subject for her, both due to our destruction of Uzushio, and because of her wish to stand alone and unshadowed, to prove herself great upon her own merits, not that of a strong but broken clan. Unlike me, she actually wanted to learn kenjutsu and join the swordsmen, the seven greatest non-bloodline users in Kiri.

So many ambitious children, so many of us with a will to make a mark upon the world, to leave a legacy in defiance of the passing of time.

I lay on the ground, looking at the flowers in bloom above me. They were blooming, as they had ever bloomed, year by year, regardless of time. They had flowered and fallen and fruited before us, and would flower and fall and fruit again after us. Regardless of victory or defeat, they would eternally be. They were flowers upon a thorny stem, what the Chinese would see as a symbol of suffering and pain. Was that foreshadowing of the god of this broken world, if there was such a figure? Rules that were ambiguously defined, wills that defy them, stories that repeat again and again without fail, past and present, from Indra and Asura, the Hound and the Wolf, the siblings of Basho-an, and the ever present struggles of the Daimyo's court, to the now-unset future, what with time and time and the reversal of time, the loops and paradoxes and infinite ripples across infinity, the wings of the butterfly and the breath upon the domino and the first stone in an avalanche caught by a net where there was none…

Who knew, what tomorrow would bring? Changing tides and a shifting moon, stones smoothened and then rebroken by chance, winds blowing this way and that…

 _I couldn_ _'_ _t breathe._ I had no strength in my body, and my chest was tight, but strangely, while I felt deprived of air, there was no sense of panic, nor a particularly strong instinct to breath. Nii-san was panicked though, lightly slapping my shoulders and calling my name. I drifted in a hazy state between here and not, oddly serene. With great effort, I breathed, and forced myself to focus on breathing. Each breath was easier than the last.

"You had no chakra!" MY brother said, a touch of fear and worry in his eyes, "You had no chakra, you had no breath and your face turned pale and your hands were cold, you were dying!"

"Yet I have recovered… somewhat." I observed.

I was drifting in thought when I lost my chakra, so the logic went that if I focused on the present, I should recover. I concentrated on smell of fish and saltwater, the citrusy scent of the flying dragon orange, and the feel of sandals beneath my feet and the play of light and shadow in the clouds above, the soft buzz of background sound, the occasional sea-gull cry.

"You're recovering." Yagura-nii said. I snorted, "As if I can't feel my own reserves, nii-san."

"Well, you are three."

"And-a-half."

"Approximately."

Well, that worked. I pluck a ripe fruit from the grove. Time to experiment in the inverse, see if I can make the change happen deliberately.

"Monitor my chakra please, nii-san." I said distractedly as I deliberately let myself drift. Almost immediately, I felt him grab my arm. "Your levels are dropping!"

"Don't be so excitable." I peeled the fruit, concentrating on the texture of the skin and the citrusy smell. I stuck a wedge in my mouth, the sourness immediately focusing me enough to return into my skin. "I think it's controllable. When I start drifting off, my levels drop, but when I focus on the present and reality, I recover. I'll ask tousan to make another trigger for me, or I can train to control it." I pop another wedge of orange into my mouth, chew, swallow, and continue. "Cheer up, it's an asset. If I can go chakra-null, then it means that I have an ultimate genjutsu defense, which means I'm going to have to be a genjutsu mistress while you're the Jinchuuriki, otherwise it would be useless. Luckily, that's just the way we decided."

"You once lived a life without chakra." He suddenly said. "If you survived once, then you can do so again." Nii-san blinked once, rubbed his hands over his face, and sighed. "You'll have to, if it's to be of any use beyond faking chakra exhaustion."

* * *

A weekend. We were back in the Dreaming, with eggs for me to try to poach and vegetables that nii-san was preparing. A pot of rice was being cooked by his chakra as he absent-mindedly plucked away bruised leaves. "Take over the rice." He ordered as he finished off the rest of the vegetables. I carefully matched his chakra level. Looking at the vegetables and the kunai in his hand, I sighed and made an impatient gesture. "Give me that, if we want to eat something that isn't mangled beyond all recognition, I'll have to be the one cutting the stuff. You can practice on dumpling fillings."

He tossed the knife to me. Irritating. I stepped aside and let it land in the dirt. Then I pulled it out and washed it in the pond. "I'm going to reverse-summon myself." Yagura-nii said nonchalantly.

My head jerked up, but he had already sped through the handseals and disappeared. Well, nothing I can do. I continued chopping vegetables as I let myself drift a bit more.

The rice was done and cooling by the time he returned, and I had already scalded the vegetables. I was concentrating on finally poaching an egg. "Welcome back. Congratulations on not dying. I am not impressed by your not telling me."

Showing admirable discipline in how he could still stand without wobbling from chakra exhaustion (sibling solidarity meant that he had tried chakra-less living with me, so it was possible), he gave me a triumphant smile. "I succeeded."

"Evidently. I said flatly. "Your summons? I'm trying to concentrate."

"Mantis Shrimp. They are affiliated with the Sanbi, Isobu. They seek for those with the ambition and will."

"Right. Can I sign?"

"You'll have to reverse summon yourself to the realm, or until I can manage to summon the boss. They can't reverse summon uncontracted parties."

"So it's another two or three years before my reserves are sufficient?"

"At least."

He almost collapsed. Then he neatly sat down, stubbornly seiza. I dished out the rice and offered him the egg.

With a grateful look, nii-san immediately began digging in. I began poaching egg number five. (numbers one to three were overcooked. Their sacrifice will be remembered)

* * *

Life was pleasant.

Naturally, that meant that we would soon face far worse trials. I had forgotten about graduation. When nii-san disappeared, I asked my mother where he was. She pointed to the island where the Academy was located. That was when I remembered: The Third Caste graduated through death. It was a pity the Uchiha were not from Kiri, I thought humorlessly. Then they would have had the freedom to kill and traumatize themselves for their eyes.

The first day, I was antsy. When night fell, and niisan did not return, I was terrified that he had died. But mother explained that the tests took far longer than a day. Usually a week of multiple tests. That night, I did not let my hair down. Nii-san had braided it before leaving for school, and if he died, though intellectually, I knew that the odds were low, I wanted something to remember him by. Save for the mercy-sorricide and reporting me to my parents and the blackmail, he had been a decent brother. I went to sleep sitting, with my head pillowed in my arms, so as to not mess up the braids more than I had to.

The second night, I had nightmares. I had spent a day poaching eggs and boiling vegetables, improving to the point of being able to cook three dishes at once. _Niisan couldcancouldCAN do more, and they would have been far more complicated._ I went to sleep when I had depleted my reserves and could do no more.

By the third, I had resorted to detaching my soul.

At the end of the fourth, I had forced myself back into my flesh, because I owed it to niisan not to escape from facing the truth head on, and there would be situations in the future when I had to cope without the luxury of divorcing mind and body. Still, I caught myself drifting, and felt guilty, and forced myself to focus on what I felt. Tousan saw me moping, and offered to teach me what he knew about grandfather's techniques. I thought of niisan dying, and my thoughts wandered to who his murderer might be if that happened. "His killer." I said absentmindedly.

"Alright." Tousan raised his eyebrows, but complied. "Your jiji died taking the second Tsuchikage down with him. The two Nidaimes were well matched in skill. They both were good at half-ninjutsu genjutsu, with your grandpa favoring mass illusions while Mu's most famous technique was erasing himself from sensory perception. You're doing well at getting people to ignore you, by the way. Keep it up, and you might get a non-entity nickname like him if word of your skill gets out. The Dustless Bewildering Cover was, believe it or not, nominally a Suiton technique. He bent vapor in such a way as to conceal himself from the senses. Your grandpa spent a long time trying to figure it out to counter him, and he left me his notes. Do you want to see?"

It was a project. I could focus on that instead of my brother and his fate. So I nodded affirmative and followed my tousan. He pulled out a few scrolls, and I spent the day trying to decipher my grandfather's messy handwriting. He was a kage. He should have had the time to spare for practicing handwriting. His records would be of vital importance to future generations, _yet he could not be bothered to spare the effort to ensure it was legible._ I was frustrated and angry and worried and angry that I was worried and _why can_ _'_ _t I understand this?!_ I snarled in fury and threw my pen onto the floor. I was crying, huge, salty tears and heaving sobs. Wiping my eyes roughly, I washed my face in a basin, dried my hands on my covers, and sat down again. Continue.

I cried and then made notations and then cried again. I snarled and cursed as much as I dared impinge the name of a Water Shadow, then returned to my work, for there was no point in rage. I let myself weep because it would have taken even more energy to restrain myself, rode out the cresting knot of anger and sadness and returned to productivity.

I did not remember nightmares that night.

The fifth day passed with me attacking my grandfather's notes with increasing vigor. I began drawing mind maps, both because it would be dissonant for a famous technique to be deciphered using flowcharts and color-coded scribbles, and because it was helpful. I spent half the day in the Dreaming, figuring things out while in Śūnyatā, both for the practice in chakra-less living and for the perspective it offered me. I only moved back into the flesh when I ate dinner with tousan and kaasan. I then asked tousan to cast genjutsu on me so I could practice silent dispelling. I camped out the night under the karatachi. Twisted dreams came, and yet I felt serenity. My hair was a mess, and I unbraided it to pull it up in a ponytail.

I did not leave the Dreaming unless summoned on the sixth day, drinking chakra-boiled pond water and eating so many sour-sweet oranges that I thought my teeth were fizzling. Kaasan dragged me out for an evening meal, but by then, I was less caught up in fear for by brother and more fascinated by getting closer to the solution to Mu's jutsu. I had just thought about his other technique that split him into two, and was trying to remember the results of my wiki-searches on quantum entanglement. It might be a teleportation effect. Or it could be light bending. The absolute invisibility suggested the former.

The seventh day had me managing to make my hand disappear, thus proving that my theory was correct. Unfortunately, by the time I succeeded, I fainted of exhaustion. Rude.

I woke up to my brother, who had adopted a steely calm demeanor and sat by a low table laid with some interesting culinary experiments.

"I am surprised that you doubted me."

"Feeling isn't rational." I replied, having made my peace with it yesterday. "It is what we have to accept. Functioning despite it or using it is what makes us superior to most, as okaa-san says."

My niisan looked skeptically at the stripped-bare bushes and the scattered papers and orange peels.

"Eat something other than the gut-rotting acid you've been consuming to alleviate your distress then."

I obligingly took a chopstick full of stir-fry. He closed his eyes and talked. "I snapped the neck of someone whose name I didn't even know. I looked at my classmates, and decided that yes, that one would be the best choice, and then decided to take a life in cold blood, and made good on that decision. I decided that someone's life was a price I was willing to pay, and made peace with that. I weighed their lives on a scale, and judged one more deserving of death than others. This will be the sort of choice I will make a lot in the future, I believe."

"Indeed."

"You will too."

It was time for a bit of humor. I said, acidly, "Unless you are contemplating mercy-sororicide again nii-san, no need for that tone."

"Most certainly not." He gave an empty laugh, but a laugh none the less. "You are my accomplice now. I'm not letting you go so easily. You will have five years to prepare yourself for blooding, imouto."

I noted the seditious talk instead of the ominous statement. "You have made the blood sacrifice, I hope."

"Have I ever not?"

 **"** **the typical Bon dance involves people lining up in a circle around a high wooden scaffold made especially for the festival called a yagura. The yagura is usually also the bandstand for the musicians and singers of the Obon music. Some dances proceed clockwise, and some dances proceed counter-clockwise around the yagura.** **" –** **Wikipedia on the Bon festival.**

 **Are the Karatachi karatachi sentient? Are they unholy abominations from the depths of hell? Or are they just an in-joke among the family? They are fed corpses of clansmen, but are they truly eaten, or is it only that they are stored in seals created by horticultural skill and then rendered inaccessible when the seal changes as the plants grow? No one knows. Obon, Kiri, and Karatachi karatachi combined let Ginkanmuri** **'** **s soul loosen. I derived inspiration from this passage of the** ** _Amber Spyglass_** **, by Phillip Pullman, on Dust.**

 **The drift was mesmerizing. How easy it would be to fall into a trance, and let her mind drift away with the floating particles**

 **Before she knew what she was doing, and because her body was lulled, that was exactly what happened. She suddenly snapped awake to find herself outside her body, and she panicked.**


	4. Kirisara

_One of the phenomena unique to Kiri, especially Chigiri, is the fluidity of identity reflected by the interchangeability of names, of which the most common are the three names-child/parent/ore-name, student/master/steel-name, and true/peer/sword-name. They each reflect a different power dynamic, the first being the parent-child dynamic, where the name given is both a wish for the child's future, and a mark of belonging, declaring that the child is protected by their family. While the power dynamic in imbalanced towards the parents, it still assumes that the parent's love the child, and while the parent-name is a wish for the future, it is both only a wish, and temporary. The second name is given by a shish_ _ou, a declaration of what the student/apprentice would be made into, and therefore setting the shape of the apprentice's future. This reflects the traditional master-apprentice relationship, in which in exchange for service and respect, the master gives the student knowledge, and crafts the student as they will. There is no expectation of affection between the two, and it is not rare for the master to be "master" in more than one sense of the word, and the apprentice to be forced to evaluate if their condition is worthwhile. The last name, the peer-name, true name, or sword-name, is the name that a shinobi earns through their own efforts, and it is either self-chosen, or offered by friends._

 _Many have commented on the associations of the names with the "tool" mentality that is prevalent in Kirigakure._

 _-Introduction to the Five Great Shinobi Nations_

* * *

 _There have been speculations as to the parentage of Kirisara, daughter of Kirihamaguri, Sandaime Mizukage, and many have proposed it to be the reason that he would treat his flesh and blood daughter as no more than a tool. Other critics have suggested that it was due to the man in question being, to quote Inheritance (widely believed to be the pen-name of Kirisara), undoubtedly "a terrible man". This is somewhat contradicted, however, by comparison with his treatment of Utakata, though it may have been due to a host of reasons, both practical and personal, from him being intended to be a Jinuchuuriki to Kirihamaguri's impending death._

 _-The Last Watch: An Account of the Last Decade of Chigiri and the Formative Years of the Coterie_

* * *

 ** _14 Years After the Purge of Uzushio. Countdown: 0.6 yrs to SWIII. 1 year to Kirigakure participation in war._**

* * *

I turned five. Nii-san had been Genin for a year now. Kiri rarely uses the team system, and prefers apprenticeships. Nii-san claims to have been given one, but refuses to speak of it. He often regales me of tales of his more interesting D-ranks, including the mosquito extermination missions. He usually complains of the pointlessness that was the mission. Apparently, the clients kept opening the windows without pulling down screens, and that let in the mosquitos, which they then required to be killed, so they kept requesting missions. Genin were forbidden from any sort of property damage, so they had to get creative, considering that there was a time limit, and the mosquitos had evolved to be far more devious than normal. My entering the academy was just a few fortnights away, at which point I would have to focus on getting a suitably influential patron to apprentice me, so I enjoyed the last month or so of relative freedom.

* * *

 **14 Years After the Purge of Uzushio. Countdown: 0.5 yrs to SWIII 0.9 yrs to Kirigakure participation in war.**

* * *

On a rainy day, we stayed indoors, and Nii-san summoned a few of his mantis shrimp to teach him their version of bukijutsu, while I experimented with my detached state, which I have named _Ś_ _ū_ _nyat_ _ā_ _._ I have discovered that it allows me to fade from notice, though sample size is limited to my parents. Nii-san can keep me on his mind with effort though. I theorize that like the men in _The Wheel of Time_ who, having sold their souls to the Dark One, are unnoticeable, my detached spirit (possibly soul) makes me (temporarily) soulless and therefore people are unable to notice me.

"Yagura. Ginkanmuri. Come." Tou-san was uncharacteristically grave. We rose and followed him.

Tou-san brought us into the meeting room which I had never been allowed to enter. I was apprehensive. Father tapped me on the head, and a henge settled over me, so that my clothes turned into a formal kimono.

I saw a man kneeling in the center of the room, opening his white robe. Before him was a tabled tanto. Beside it was a scroll, the ink not yet dry on its surface. It was deathly silent. I saw my brother out of the corner of my eye, expressionless, garbed in a ceremonial kimono as well. His eyes were fixed on the man. Finished, the man (pupiless as us all) took the blade from the small table and struck at his own stomach. Blood. Blood spurted the way an arterial bleed did. I tried to look away but I couldn't, for kaa-san's hand was affixed to my head. The man never made a sound. Not when he bared his stomach. Not when he took the blade (no scrape of metal across wood). Not when he stabbed himself. Not even when he died, curling in on himself. Not even his corpse made a sound as it fell.

Around the room stood a circle of pupiless men and women, impassive watchers all, with us completing the circle. The blood stopped creeping over the floor. Mother finally let me look away. To father's side I saw the Sandaime Mizukage. He looked viciously amused.

"Your blood is as honorable as ever." Said he to my mother. "The Karatachi have not diminished in their dedication, nor has a weakness of heart carried over into a weakness of will in your kin."

"It is to our greatest dishonor that our diligence has waned, and sedition arisen in those we watch. We are shamed by our failing to repay the mercy granted by Kiri when we were spared the purge of the enemies of Kiri." Replied okaa-san.

Politics.

I immediately started fading into the background. Mother's grip on my shoulder tightened. I'm a pawn this time, not part of the scenery then. I immediately tried to distract myself by focusing on the word "civilian". The man who just killed herself. He was a civilian?! To slit one's throat without any expression, to ritually suicide without a sound. What demands would be made of us shinobi and kunoichi-in-training if the civilians are required to be so?

Father's voice sounded in my ear, but when I looked at him, his lips did not move. Genjutsu then. " _When asked, repeat this. It is our duty to serve Kirigakure no Sato with flesh and blood and bone, to spill our guts and brains upon the earth in the service of our village. Dissension is not tolerated, and our loyalty should be absolute. Even a whisper of rebellion proved deserves to be quashed without mercy, for we live at our Kage's pleasure._ "

 _I am (_ far from) _harmless_.

I speak, clear, precise syllables in a child's high voice, solemn and composed, effortlessly synchronized with my brother. Through genjutsu, father helps us enhance our eeriness, the contradicting messages of _harmless yet not_ , and our hints of _otherness_. And the Mizukage is pleased. "Two tributes," he murmurs, "for two faces of a coin. An excellent pedigree, with the Crimson Kinslayer as a dam, and the Illusion of Moonlessness for a sire."

The other Karatachi are statues, silent and still, and the civilian man's blood congeals about his cooling corpse. Our lives were forfeit, for we had once opposed Kiri's founding. It was by the Mist's grace that we breathed, and lives demanded as sacrifice would be given. Hostages, weapons, blades to our family's throats, the best of every generation bound directly to the Mizukage's service. Unspoken is that it is a punishment. It is rare, but not unprecedented, for the Mizukage to conscript more than one child at a time, so it appears that my brother's destiny has affected me after all.

One of my more distant family members—an older cousin, Bara, steps forward. "I do not disagree with your ruling, Mizukage-sama, but it is my request that your favor be less overt." She said calmly, in the same measured tones we were all taught, "To have two of our number join the ranks of your guard at the same time is too great an honor. I propose that the younger of the two be only recruited after her graduation from the academy."

The Mizukage laughed, and held up his hand, "No need." Said he, "I know of your children, and how little they learn in schoolrooms. The girl will join her brother within the year under another name, and neither shall be mere members of my guard."

And the Karatachi voiced assent.

"Girl." said the Mizukage, and with mother's prompting, I knelt. "You are Karatachi Ginkanmuri no longer. Henceforth, your name is Kirisara, musume."

He pressed both hands to my brow and ran one through my hair. As it passed down the length, ash-blond turned to ink-black. His other hand stroked my cheek, smearing it with a touch of blood, and I felt my features shifting, brows darkening, bones sharpening. "You may take a minute to bid your former life farewell, daughter." He said with false kindness, hand heavy on my shoulder as he let me rise. I hugged my brother for the last time I was permitted to openly acknowledge him as such. My heart twisted. Was it cruelty or kindness that as apprentice (for that was the only possibility I could think of), nii-san would still meet with the Mizukage Otou-sama regularly, and allow me to see him?

Father's genjutsu quickened, taking whatever time was left to tell me what he could about my conduct.

I learnt then that we survived by being loyal, by purging any sign of corruption before it could possibly spread and give anyone an excuse to do so themselves. We stopped others from killing us by killing ourselves instead. I was told that if I was commanded to cut my own throat, I was to unhesitatingly do so, lest I risk the nine-generation extermination of my kin.

 _We are Karatachi. We are caste. We must excel just to survive._

Perfection is not an achievement. It is the bare minimum of what is required for a ninja with the surname of trifoliate orange.

"Close your eyes." And my new father gathered me up in his arms. _Ś_ _ū_ _nyat_ _ā_ I thought, and drifted to serenity so that I would not cry.

* * *

Some hours after, with her son comforted as much as she was able, Karatachi Mino sneered silently. T _his is how your curse manifests then, Uzumaki? How ham-handed, but what more can you expect of an impulsive, heart-ruled witch? You should have waited until I grew complacent if you had wanted to hurt me, or given far less importance to their sacrifice. As apprentices and heirs of the Mizukage, my children have far better chances of living to see the end of this war than as Karatachi. Fool. You have done me a service so great that I now entertain the notion of lighting incense for your soul on Obon. After all, you have given me a way for the survival of my clan, and I am Karatachi. I have always been willing to sacrifice my children._

And yet she mourned the fate of her fierce, talented children. Steel-spined Yagura and vicious little Ginkanmuri, both as worthy of her legacy as they could be, doomed to be consumed by Kiri.

* * *

Masked figures escorted the Mizukage to his residence. Despite his age (I remembered him being present at the first Gokage summit), he was strong. He set me down in a washroom, and I finally opened half-closed eyes. He examined me.

"You have expressed interest in the Nidaime Tsuchikage's techniques."

"Hai, Mizukage-sama."

A flash of intent. "Musume."

"My apologies, Otou-sama." I bit my tongue and bent my head.

"Continue."

"I have managed a version of the Dustless Bewildering Cover, and am in the process of refining it for field use. I estimate the time required to be a month. I have made no headway on his self-division."

"How…precocious." He looked at me contemplatively. "It would be fitting… Enter."

A woman came in, carrying a tray of contacts, needles, paints and hair dyes. I recognized the smell of one particular concoction. It was the same plant father used to color my hair ash-blond, for my hair had never been naturally identical in hue to my brother's. It was as red as my mother's, a blazing sign saying " _this is an Uzumaki_ ", so, as prejudice against the Uzumaki was not gone, and I had not earned the respect that my mother had, it was only prudent that my appearance be altered. It would have served the dual purpose of showing unity with Yagura-nii.

Tou-san helped me dye my hair. _Otou-sama_ helped me dye my hair. It was the same. Warm water, the scent of ink and flowers, and hands in my hair and on my scalp. The smell was somewhat different, due to the different mix, but still. A touch of chakra, and it is dry. Then the woman puts contacts into my eyes, and he examines them.

He picks out a few shades. Dark colours. Blues and deep lavenders and a touch of cold grey.

"Any suggestions, Sara-chan?"

I didn't want his choices, even if I was terrified of offending him. His eyes were two black pearls, iridescent. I didn't want the indication of familial relationship.

"Silver, if possible, otou-sama."

He smiled, as if I had passed a test of sorts.

"The color that is not a color? You are truly my daughter. A good choice-these will protect you from minor genjutsu." And from his sleeve he produced a box, which opened to show silver contacts kept in tiny bottles. The woman took it from him, and pressed the silver into my eyes. I kept still. They darkened my sight a bit, but not much. The Mizukage then twisted his hand, and I was paralyzed. Taking the needle, pricked his own finger, and then set about tattooing my face with his blood as ink. I spared a thought about blood-transmitted diseases to stave of hysteria.

Darkness took me.

* * *

I was so excited! Otou-sama had finally let me go to the academy. I was overjoyed at having proven my ability, and to be soon able to better serve him.

Today, otou-sama had taken me to the Karatachi, a third-caste family, because one of their civilians was going to suicide and it was my father's will to witness it. Otou-sama had told me that the Karatachi produced the best shinobi, and that Karatachi Mino, the Crimson Kinslayer had produced a son in union with Nidaime-sama's natural-born son. The older boy (he was so much taller than I, for as Otou-sama had told me, he was almost ten. I was only _four_ ) was as blond as Nidaime-sama, and he was as composed as Otou-sama. I thought that Otou-sama was quite pleased, and ventured beyond my place to ask if there was any particular reason for my introduction to Karatachi Yagura. My lord father had deigned to grace me with an answer, and I was both sorrowed and gladdened by it. He had chosen Karatachi Yagura as an apprentice, for he foresaw his waning, and in testament to his wisdom, he was preparing a legacy. I was gladdened, for my father was wise, and I would have a companion other than his silent and wan Guard, of whom I was almost a member, yet I was also saddened, for my father's death was near.

I was still imperfect, so I wept into my father's arms, soiling his silken raiment. He was my father, lord and master and namer, and there was so much I had yet to learn. Otou-sama was demanding, for it was his right to be, and yet he graced me with kindness beyond the required. In my hair was a pin he gave me for no other reason than that I had found it pretty, and he had often indulged my fascination for stories, and let me sit by his side and idly watch the rain. How many more snowfalls could I experience by his side? How many gifts would I lose for him to find? I had no mother, there were none to claim me but my father, who made time for me despite being the leader of a village. It was selfish, to ask for some of his remaining time, when it would be spent worthlessly when it was needed elsewhere. Yet I so very wanted it. I buried my face in otou-sama's robes, though I knew I should not.

Warm arms enfolded me. "Do not mourn, dearest daughter." He said as he embraced me, "We have years yet to spend, and you have much to learn from me. My legacy will live on in you and Yagura-kun."

He cleared the damage with a wave of his hand, and swiped a suspended sheet of water over my face. "Weep not, sweet child." He said with a smile. "Death comes to us all. A treat today, now that you're old enough to eat raw seafood. There is a store that you should try, and I have an hour or two to spare."

He sent me to my room to change, and I opened my lovingly-worn wardrobe. I chose a simple lavender kimono with a hem of embroidered clams and pearls. It was my favorite.

Otou-sama took me to the store by Shunshin. It was called Hanaya's. He led me in. "The proprietor is absent," He commented, "but that is no worry. You will be able to enjoy the absolute foolishness that is its only full-time employee. As they say," he smiled, "dinner, and a show."

With a snap of his fingers, he summoned a youth aged a score of monsoon rains. "Mizukage-sama!" he bowed, panickily. "It's an honor! How may I help you?"

His bow knocked over a soy sauce bottle and he scrambled to catch it. In his haste, he managed to drop the clipboard he held with a clatter, and when he bent to pick them up, furiously blushing, the chair behind him was moved with an awful screech. Very much civilian in his ineptitude, unless he was a brain-damaged shinobi or undercover spy of great skill. Otou-sama laughed and said, conspiratorially, "As I said, dinner, and a show."

I smiled despite my residual sadness.

Turning to the server, he ordered, "Your full platter, with extra pickled ginger. Bring two servings of yourself as well, Tako-kun."

"Myself?" Tako-san sqeaked.

"Your wasabi octopus." Otou-sama clarified, amused. I was beginning to suspect that he was scaring Tako-san on purpose.

"Righ—right. On it!"

He scrambled back into the kitchen with a clatter.

Otou-sama drew water from the air, and let it hang suspended in a tiny ball. I thought that I was capable of the same as well, though I did not recall having learned it.

"Boil it for me, Sara-chan." I lift a hand to the ball, and channel chakra into it, leash the edges in to keep it from dissipating, weave my strands though his own power. The water boils, and with an elegant slip of his hand, otou-sama pours it into the dry tea leaves.

He lets it steep. I pour the tea, as is proper. The octopus, despite many tribulations, arrives at our table unscathed. Tako-san takes the yet to be grated wasabi stems, and makes the wasabi with oddly skillful movements. He splits the resultant paste neatly into two, and mixes it with the portions of octopus, a spoonful at a time. Left paste to left pot, stir; right paste to right pot, stir; left paste to right pot, stir; right paste to left pot, stir. Repeat. Finished, with a hurried bow, he left, muttering about seeing to the platter. Otou-sama gestured to the bowl closer to me. "Try it." I pick up my chopsticks, and a standard, habitual mutter later, I stick a piece of mucous covered octopus into my mouth.

It was strong. Very strong. The genjutsu broke. With streaming eyes, I look at my father-no, the Mizukage. He was smiling knowingly. "To deceive oneself is the mark of a perfect spy. Mu was no one, and with this ability for deception, he infiltrated Kiri and assassinated the Shodai. It is an interesting technique, and as my student, and the legacy of Gengetsu and Mu, you will learn it. Yours shall be a bitter schooling, Sara-chan, but you will emerge well forged."

Unlike in the Meeting Room where I first met him, I had no family at my back. I did not even have a name. I was Kirisara, marked as his own, not Ginkanmuri of the Karatachi. From one point of view, it was perfectly fitting. He was my master, and the name he gave would be my student-name, the name the smith gave to the sword, the words that declared what he would make me, far superseding Ginkanmuri, the parent-name, that spoke of my parents' hopes and dreams for my future. But since I was also his daughter, he had taken Mino and Minazuki's dreams. He had even stripped me of my surname, and with it, what meagre protection offered by my belonging to a family. I now lived and died at his pleasure, so far as the laws of Kiri were concerned, and I was powerless against him, had no viable alternative than to bow.

For now.

To spare myself the need to speak, I took another piece of octopus. By unspoken agreement, we ignored the less-than-peaceful sounds coming from the kitchen.

"The swordsmiths have an interesting technique, in which they bury iron to let its weaker parts rust away." He said as he too began to eat. "Such will be the nature of your future ordeals. The art of illusion is a hiltless blade, and even as you seek uncertainties in your enemies' psyches, you will find your own as well, and they will be liabilities that I will not allow in any legacy of mine. After this time when you learn to be my daughter, you will either emerge with unassailable self-certainty, ready for future shaping, or you will rust away, a failure."

"Hai." I said, eyes downcast.

With a bang, the waiter returned, bearing a platter that had just bumped into the doorway to the kitchens. He was flushed and harried. "A thousand apologies for the tardiness, but the fish got under the counter and we needed to catch it before it did something problematic and then I nudged the octopus tank cover out of alignment and I had to prize the tentacles off the tank to put the cover back before the cook had to be resuscitated due to his octophobia before we could present you with this dish. It's not spoiled though!"

I smiled sincerely at him, because the only defiance of the Sandaime's parentage I could offer was defiance of his cruelty, and unlike Kirisara, I had no desire to please. "Thank you, Tako-san. Your efforts were not wasted. This looks quite appetizing."

"Thus you are now," said the Sandaime, for his days were numbered, after Tako left, "sweet Kirisara, obedient and ruthlessly eager to please. You are the islands enshrouded in mist, the ground upon which we stand, the corpse of a kami. Faithful servant with hidden depths and unseen horrors under your command, you are named."

* * *

 **Karatachi are third caste. To quote Shadowking, my immensely helpful beta,** **"** **they survive by being perfect tools** **"** **. Poor them. Yagura is perfectly justified in his ambitions.**


	5. Not Alone (Nono)

_Our identity is fictional, written by parents, relatives, education, society._

 _-_ Genesis P-Orridge

* * *

 **Kirigakure**

 **5 years after Purge of Uzushio. Countdown: 0.2 years to SWIII. 0.6 years to Kirigakure participation in war**

* * *

Otou-sama watched as I completed the forgery. It burst into flames in my hands as he gave a derisive snort. Failure. My heart sank, and that feeling was far more painful than the burns on my hands. It had taken me so long to complete, yet it still wasn't _good enough_. The pain was burning, but my hands weren't blistering as they should if they were real. Besides, why didn't I drop the paper on reflex? _My name is_ _Ginkanmuri,_ _not Kirisara._

"This is a genjutsu, otou-sama."

"Any fool could tell me that. I expect better, Kirisara-chan."

I bit my tongue at the name (the mark of ownership), and replied, _eager to please_ , "Mental illusion; it has a high X value, lack of reflexive action indicates a high or low Y value, and the absence of scent from the ashes makes a non-zero Z value unlikely."

"The meanings of the three axes?"

"X for mind. Y for body. Z for reality."

"Clarify."

"X creates hallucinations and delusions, the most common examples are those of the Hell-viewing variety; Y deals with nerves, simplest one is a near-raiton nerve spasm, nameless, but most shinobi are more familiar with _Idle Hands_ ; Z represents how close a genjutsu is to ninjutsu. High Z-values are characteristic of basic bunshin and camouflage techniques. Henge has a value of 137, exceeding the maximum genjutsu value and therefore classified as a ninjutsu in Kirigakure, though it varies in other villages."

There it was, the wash of pride in my village, in its superiority in the illusory arts. It was a constant, in both Kirisara and Ginkanmuri, but when Ginkanmuri saw, she said _it can be better_. Or so I thought. I was uncertain if Ginkanmuri was me, and not my own imaginings of what life as Yagura-san's sister would be like.

"How was class today, Sara-chan?"

Unspoken is the threat of punishment, direct――to myself, or indirect――to my loved ones, if I failed to give a satisfactory answer. I breathe. _Kirisara does not have the restraint of the Karatachi. She will not settle for mediocrity._

I speak.

"It was…pleasant. We were entered and tested. My prospective classmates..." I looked down, for my impression of them was an unflattering one, and I was unsure as to "otou-sama"'s expectations on my views of them.

"Sara-chan?"

"They do not comport themselves in a way befitting their station." I look down at my hands, folded in my lap. I blushed fiery red. "The-they are—"

"Do not stutter, Kirisara. You are not that civilian boy who waits tables." He snapped sharply.

"Hai, otou-sama." I made to bite my lip, but that too was not behavior condoned by my father, and I had already shown myself as enough of a failure. "They are inadequately educated for their age, boisterous and arrogant in a manner unbefitting of shinobi. They fail to accurately self-assess, and do not have the foresight or organizational skills of a _civilian_ student."

Otou-sama laughed, amused. "They are nobility grown indolent. I expect little of them until they have been forced to realize that they are soldiers now, and that they must fight for their place in the world. They have been allowed too much softness, unlike you, my obedient daughter."

"It is my purpose to serve, otou-sama." I replied, "But—" I paused, because I was venturing beyond the permissible, "—if I may, I would request permission to remove myself from their presence. Their unruliness is off-putting, and I am unsure as to how to act without sparking a diplomatic fiasco among the infants."

"You find them that immature?"

"Hai, otou-sama." I made a face, "They're still learning _hiragana._ "

He patted my head. "I see."

* * *

 **Konohagakure**

 **5 years after Purge of Uzushio. Countdown: 0.2 years to SWIII. 0.2 years to Konohagakure participation in war**

* * *

She was tired. Lord Danzo had rescued her from the destroyed ruins of her former home. In exchange, she served him for the good of Konoha.

It was all bullshit. Nothing worth serving would allow children to be forced into war, or do away with the weaker ones so as not to waste resources. She had shown some talent for chakra control, so she had been shunted into the iryo-program, while her uncanny social competence had earmarked her for infiltration. _Even university was less exhausting_. She couldn't go to the authorities about the human rights violations here, nor did she have the ability to stop the atrocities herself. From her lessons, which were suspect, though not too much—spies did need accurate information—there might not even be authorities. A world in constant turmoil, super-powered ninjas, no, the term was shinobi, fighting in world wars once a generation… there was no international code beyond _don't get caught_. She had been a chemistry teacher, not a history major, philosophy or religion major, a medical doctor, or poli-science. She had not been born to change the world, but who had been?

She had chosen to stay, because she had been a teacher—no, she was still a teacher. She failed to protect her students once. She would not fail to protect another child. Not if she could help it. So she learned, and practiced, and did her best to excel. And it was a bitter, oh so bitter pill to swallow, that she was the equivalent of a Nazi false-doctor; euthanizing children (she could not see herself as one) or repairing them so that they could be broken further. The only bits of comfort came from when she gave a child a chance to cry, to be given a reprieve from the terrible, dehumanizing training they were going through. And then she would feel guilty for taking comfort in that, when she could have done more, if she had had but the courage to do so.

There was a seal on her tongue that made her unable to speak of all the horrors that she had seen, and her heart was too soft to let her abandon so many children. Lord Danzo, and how that title burned her tongue, found her perfect but for her kind heart, but it was also that kindness that made her so trusted. She would return like a hawk to the mews, because of her heart, even though she could flee. So he indulged her with small allowances, and rewarded good behavior with small comforts she could give to the younger ones.

She was a teenager now, as little as that meant in this world, where prepubescent children fought and died in the trenches. She spent her days teaching iryou-ninjustu to what children she could. She had been a chemistry teacher in her previous life, and iryou was technically safer and less complicated than handling sulfuric acid and alkali metals, especially since her students were quiet and eager to learn and far less unruly than the clique-forming teenagers of her previous life. Medics were always needed, and she was better at teaching groups than most. Konoha was still half-way an apprenticeship system, which made her ability to mass-produce――and she snorted at the descriptor――field medics valuable and unique. ROOT did not focus on medical support but on the darkness that others did not touch, so she was sent above-ground in lulls between spikes of activity to train medics, for the good of Konoha, as it was. That had meant Danzo gifting her with a name. She hated herself for how she loved that little scrap of identity tossed to her. She had forgotten so much. What had been her name? Before? She could not remember the faces of her parents either. All lost in the name of making a perfect spy.

She was Yakushi Nono, the carefree child of the medicine buddha.

She did not miss how her influence spread; how her students and those they saved using what they had learnt from her, as well as those whose lives were improved by the easier tricks that her students had passed on all smiled at her as she passed; how her circles of debt and influence had grown. But _not enough_. And there was a seal on her tongue. She was loath to test it and risk alerting Danzo to her disloyalty. So she smiled, reported, and tried not to hate herself when she saw a tiny corpse and thought _I could have stopped that if I was a little bit braver._

She still loves chemistry, though it had taken a decidedly military bent after so long. _She hates how she bends over backwards for a man who could only be described as evil_. It had caught the attention of the Snake Sannin, and while he was her senior, she had blinked and seen that furious little boy who had been so, so angry at a world that had stared at him; a world that had pointed and whispered and ridiculed. _She almost feels like she would be atoning for failing that little boy_. She smiled, and ignored how training had made her false smiles indistinguishable from true ones to the point that even she couldn't tell them apart, ignored the whisper _are you doing this for yourself or for him_? Orochimaru was not that little boy, and for that she was thankful.

She had once been a simple teacher with a liking for Marvel movies in her spare time. It seemed to have come back to bite her, now that she had become a spy/assassin; she was somewhat similar to the Black Widow, even backstory-wise.

She chokes back a laugh, because _this is no story_ , there is no assurance of the victory of good over evil—for evil Shimura Danzo was—and even less of a promise for her personal success. And she was a coward. She did not dare risk facing him head on. She took a breath, steady, indistinguishable from the last, and let her face fall blank.

She approached the door. Knocked.

"Enter."

She entered. Knelt. "Danzo-sama."

"Report."

"Orochimaru has reacted positively to overtures of friendship. Preliminary assessment has confirmed that he is distressed by his teammates' abandonment and the village's ostracization, though it has not affected his performance. He has not indicated any undue suspicion towards Yakushi Nono's motivations, though he has discerned that Yakushi Nono would have no concrete benefits from the course of action she has pursued. He is wary, but Yakushi Nono has a reputation of compassion and a cosmopolitan worldview, as well as a shared orphanage of origin. It has not been considered out of character for Yakushi Nono to associate with him."

A short nod. "Acceptable. Proceed as normal."

"Hai."

"Dismissed."

* * *

Shimura Danzo considered Orochimaru.

The boy, despite his many idiosyncrasies, was well worth the price. As Orochimaru was Sarutobi's favorite student and possibly the next Hokage, the gains were greater than the sacrifice. That he had had to assign one of his best spies to domestic duties with war on the horizon was an inconvenience, but due to the current state of affairs, she would be more effective inside Konoha in an educational role anyway. She was relatively irreplaceable in Konoha, compared to being planted within other villages, as there were others who could adequately fulfil the latter role. Nono had skill in the fields the Snake Sannin favored, making her a suitable companion who was not only capable of catching his interest, but also of keeping it and surveilling his projects without the barrier born of a lack of expertise. The operative's own talent could have found its origin in a Demolition Corps heritage—the operative's birth-village had been frequented by foreign shinobi before.

He suspected the boy to have unconsciously associated the blond medic with his own traitorous teammate, and attached himself to her out of a subconscious likening of Nono to the Last Senju. Therefore, it might be productive for him to begin encouraging more intimate ties between them—the clan of serpent summoners had been talented, if small, and the subject of much bigotry due to their appearance—more suited to working unseen in the roots than above in the sunlight and leaves. It was a pity that it had waned to one with no heir in sight.

* * *

The operative exited the underground through a trapdoor concealed by shrubbery. Producing a doctor's overcoat from a seal, she covered her slightly dusty clothes with hygienic white, let out a sigh of relief and headed for the hospital. She had to oversee a poisoning case and make sure that that finicky enantiomer didn't manage to get turned around again.

* * *

 **Kirigakure**

 **5 years after purge of Uzushio. Countdown: 0.1 yrs to SWIII. 0.5 yrs to Kirigakure participation in the war.**

* * *

Class had ended, and thankfully, I had been moved up two years; though the material was still absurdly simple, at least it was less monotonous than copying kanji. "Sensei." A blond-haired, pink-eyed girl bowed as she entered. She appeared to be a year or so older than I, and rather taller. "Yagura-nii-san sent me to retrieve Kirisara-chan from class on Mizukage-sama's orders."

I started a bit, but managed to hide it. So this was Yagura-san's actual imuoto? She should be in the Third-Year third-caste class, and class should still be in session for them. In fact, they should have been kept at school until after dinner—the cafeteria prepared an evening meal for third-caste cadets. Kurage-sensei had a similar idea, and she asked, sharply, "You should be in class. Where is your authorization?"

The girl produced two folded papers. "Kaiso-sensei gave me a pass. Yagura-nii-san has written a memo on the matter as well."

Kurage-sensei took both and reviewed them with a dubious expression. She flared her chakra to ascertain the validity of the seal, and repeated the procedure when there was nothing amiss. "Kirisara!" She called.

I stood up. "Hai, sensei."

"You're going with the girl. She's taking you to the Kage no Sono. If you think she's leading you elsewhere, don't be afraid to scream and run. Splash into a few reflection pools if you need to, and don't stop until you reach the main buildings."

"Understood, sensei." I replied respectfully, but Kurage-sensei did worry unnecessarily.

I moved to take my schoolbag with me. Kurage-sensei hesitated, and then stopped me.

"Leave your bag here. You've already finished your homework, Kirisara, so it'll only slow you down."

"Thank you, sensei." I smiled politely, and went towards the front of the classroom, where the older girl was waiting, impassive despite the aspersions Kurage-sensei had cast upon her character.

"Kirisara-san." She bowed.

"Ginkanmuri-senpai." I returned shyly, restraining myself from fidgeting with my jacket.

"Come on then." She said, "We mustn't keep your otou-sama waiting."

She turned, and I followed. In school, at least, we both kept to the illusion that we were incapable of wall-walking, so we still went along the hallways instead of exiting via voluntary defenestration. I was cold. _Who am I? Why do I imagine a life as Ginkanmuri-senpai?_

Ginkanmuri-senpai didn't lure me to a dark alley to kidnap and ransom me. As we neared the Garden of Kage, she pressed a small box into my hands. Clarifying, she said, "According to nii-san, Mizukage-sama is intending to start your free-diving training, so you might want to keep a pack of ginger sweets in your pocket. The box has been sealed to be water-proof." She then flipped it over to point at another symbol inscribed in a corner, "This one's a heating seal, so if you channel chakra in it, it'll function as a handwarmer as well, though it's not very large. Good luck."

We entered the empty garden. Gardens had a habit of being abandoned and eerie in Kiri, though visibility was poor given the thickness of the mists. "Mizukage-sama." Ginkanmuri bowed towards the right and left me alone, and now that I was paying attention, I could discern otou-sama's coalescing form in the thick, unnatural fog.

"This is a clone." He said calmly, "As unfortunately, I will be preoccupied during this time. Ginkanmuri has her own assignments that will also require the Garden. Ignore the girl. You will begin with basic breath exercises, followed by diving while holding a henge. I will stay and supervise. Ensure that you have enough chakra to dry yourself afterwards, as I will not allow my daughter to be incapable of self-sufficiency. Now, hold your breath. Upon my command, start walking, but keep your breath held. Stop walking when you take another breath, and then repeat on my command."

I did as ordered, but could not help but notice as Ginkanmuri began to let herself sink into the water, not standing on top of it-as was typical-but a handspan or so into it. I could imagine that it was far more difficult. It was clear that while Ginkanmuri existed, I was not she, even though I did have a habit of imagining her with startling accuracy through Yagura-san's accounts of her deeds.

* * *

Pain is pleasant compared to asphyxiation, and asphyxiation is at least less strenuous when it is not self-inflicted. I understand perfectly that self-discipline is one of the essential virtues of those who endure, and that any discomfort otou-sama wills I undergo here would only be to my benefit, but it is still a struggle to neither exhale nor inhale, force down the sensation of my lungs burning, and push past my swimming vision. _By my father's will._ I take another step. I clutch my arms to fight the need to breath as I continue walking. My chest tries to contract and expand as if I am hyperventilating, even though I do not allow the passage of air into my lungs. I concentrate on the path _one more second, one more step._

I let the breath go and gasp for air. "Hold." I immediately stop, grit my teeth and pinch my nose, focusing on the pain to suppress a continued need to gasp. The breath had been enough to recover my facilities somewhat, and otou-sama was correct in judging that more would merely be an indulgence and a waste of precious time. Centering myself, I keep my gaze focused on the skeletal dried husk of a ghost lantern, a bright red coral-bead-like berry inside. _One minute_. That is how long I would need to endure before I was to walk. I am more than flesh and bone, and my will is stronger than mere instinct. I am Kirisara, daughter of the Mizukage. _I will not falter!_

"Start." I compel my body forward, and move towards my father. Moments threaded together make eternity, and if I have triumphed for one second, I can triumph for another, and then, another. Dark spots swim in my sight, but they are of no consequence. I almost reach my father _just a few more steps!_ I can't help but breathe.

"Hold."

I stop.

 _Again._

 _Repeat._

 _Again._

My knees are weak. My head is dizzy. I gasp. This time, otou-sama does not command me to cease. He lets me collapse against him, and says, gently, "Breathe, child. You have earned a respite."

I am proud to have met his standards. I sink gratefully into my father's arms.

We begin again. I dive into the clear water of the pond to try to catch otou-sama's smaller summons. The sun-and-moon clams are surprisingly fast and agile as they spurt water to propel themselves away.

In winter, the water is just warm enough to not freeze. It is hard to see in the water, with everything a blur and my eyes feeling like they have been crying. Once otou-sama makes me henge into the traditional white garb of an ama, the goggles help with my sight, but despite that, my task becomes harder, as I must concentrate on holding the henge and moving unfamiliar long limbs as well as swim in the numbing cold.

I persist despite lightheadedness, because if I stop to breathe before it becomes necessary, I will never succeed in catching even one of the clams. They could only move in spurts and jerks, so I had an advantage. My fingers close around my target, and I kick off from the muddy bottom, bursting from the water with a triumphant cry, the shell clutched securely in my father praises me, smiling, "Good job, Kirisara." He then adds: "But are you sure that you haven't been chasing an illusion?"

I am certain that my expression must have been one of comical surprise as the clam dissolved into mist. However, once I reviewed my actions, I was fairly certain that I had caught a real clam, and that it was now that there had been an illusion.

"Yes, Otou-sama." I replied.

Father smiled, and it is revealed that I indeed held my prize.

"No test is simple, is it, otou-sama?" I ask.

"They are microcosms of life, child," he replies amusedly, "and life rarely is. Continue, and see if you can find them all before today's lessons are over."

I dive back in.

* * *

 **Kirigakure**

 **5 years after Purge of Uzushio. Countdown: 0.2 years to SWIII. 0.6 years to Kirigakure participation in war**

* * *

"Hey, Oar."

"Ameyuri." Yagura turned to his former classmate and inclined his head. "How has your week been?"

The red-haired academy student made a face. "Rika-sensei's making me take kunoichi classes again even though I told her I'm aiming for a shinobi career path. You'd have thought that she would've been satisfied with your girliness and let me be a bit more masculine to balance it out."

"I am a shinobi," He countered, "even if I see nothing wrong in being familiar with the less direct arts. Some of us believe skill to be worth more than pride."

Ameyuri snorted, "Yeah, yeah, semp-kohai, but I can't be seen as a kunoichi if I want a shot at my dream job. As you very well know."

Yagura shrugged, bloodlust rising easily to the surface as he smiled, "But what's an insult or two between friends? Better to be tripped when you can get up by a benevolent hand than by enemies when you can't."

Greetings complete, the older of the two laughed. "Good one, I was almost creeped out by it. So, the info you wanted on the Twos. Alleged top shinobi's a brat, and the kunoichi's blackmailing is so obvious that even I'm disgusted. But I asked around, and apparently, the kunoichi's actually the cat's paw of the Sumi kid from my class. So the guy's either being incompetent for the heck of it or he's trying to make a point like that time when you made your scores spell out the hiragana for shinobi. You might want to recruit him. On the Firsties, rumor is that the Swordsmen are recruiting, though you should know better than I would, considering that you're working directly under our esteemed leader. ANBU's watching for promise in the Twos and Turds-sorry, Thirds, while on the dark side, Omugi's third cousin two-and-a-half-times removed's been convicted of treason. Oh, and the new batch of Sweepings from the Street have basically settled in. We haven't had a lockdown from one of them trying to escape for five days now. Now, today's a raiton day, so cough up."

"Raiju Kojun." The boy acquiesced. "It's a B-rank. I've managed to modify it into a C-rank for your consumption though," He glared, "so I expect it to count for four normal jutsu."

"Not a chance." Ameyuri shot back, "I'll let you go next time if you teach me the original as well, but that's it."

"The original version should be considered an independent jutsu, so teaching you the modified version would count as giving you two. Therefore, once my time and exertion has been factored in, the two together should be worth four of the common sort _at least_."

"No way. You're enough a stick-in-the-mud that doing this would have been your idea of fun, so I'll make it count for one more jutsu if you get Mino-san to give me another kenjutsu lesson. That's it, capiche?"

"Agreed."

"Okay. How're you holding up, by the way?"

Yagura groaned, "It took you this long to start feeling friendly concern? And _I'm_ the terrible friend? I'm very much _not fine_. I'm so busy that I'm delegating to my _academy student sister_. I act as a gofer for Mizukage-sama in the village, and get stuck on worst sorts of escort missions when I'm out of the village. You'd think middle-aged women would stop projecting their desire for adorable children onto me after I get soaked in blood from bandit attacks, but no, they start cooing at how "serious" and "responsible" I am. If my cheeks get pinched one more time, I swear I will start hengeing for the whole mission, the secondary intelligence gathering objectives and combat readiness be damned."

"Gotcha. Poor baby oar, stuck being spoilt by over-indulgent matrons with empty nest syndrome as he moes their husbands' secrets out of them. Did you get fat from all the sweets?"

"Shut up. Now, the modified version's handseals are like this. Once you're familiar with how you shape your chakra, drop them one by one until you're left with Ram. But make sure you drop the first two last, because I put them there to limit the thing, and if you aren't casting it at peak efficiency with your reserves mostly full, you'll get knocked out by how much it'll take out of you, and I have enough chakra-exhausted females in my life without you being one of their number."

"Aww, you care."

"In case you have forgotten, I can give you the mosquito extermination mission for a week in a row during career week."

"Abusing authority now? Awww, you're growing up so fast!-OW! Fine, shutting up now."

* * *

 **Omake: Who is Jitabata Tako (lit. clumsy octopus)?**

It was cold, damp, and gray. The mists were thick, and unnatural shadows seemed to move within them. The air was redolent with the rust-tang of blood. Three bodies washed up onto the shore: A blue-haired woman and a pale-blond man, the half-grown body pressed between them capped in seaweed-or was it hair? The child stirred. He was clad in a tattered shirt and pants, and far too unprotected from the freezing fog. Coughing up water, he tried to get up, but he was trapped by the arms encircling him. Stiff, cold, arms. The arms of corpses. The boy screamed.

The sound was swallowed by the gray. Fighting his way out of the clutches of the dead bodies, he stumbled through the shallows, aimless, lost. He did not know who he was, had no memory of his past, could not recall anything before this day. The tides came in, and he now walked in hip deep water. Why did he walk? He did not know. Why didn't he walk? He was hollow, and if he knew what he was feeling, he would call it fear, or perhaps loneliness.

His movement attracted a kraken. It was an ancient horror, gorged on a diet of cadavers that had washed into the sea from Chigiri. It was old, and it had acquired a taste for human flesh. Here was a child, sweet and tender, flavored by the terror that was characteristic of its prey. It attacked.

The child, though bereft of identity, had instincts yet. He moved to protect himself. The tentacles were mostly twined upon his legs and torso, so his arms were yet free. With a hold on two of the rubbery appendages, he tried to tear it away. The octopus was too strong! The boy now saw the sharp beak at the center of the circle of tentacles, and desperation fueled his weak limbs: no! Coming in contact with that monstrosity would mean a gaping, potentially fatal wound. His leg miraculously free, he kicked its eyes and cried out his defiance of death, though he had no reason to live.

Enter the kunoichi.

This was no sweet young thing, nor Lady in the prime of her power. This was a crone, and as all Chigiri children know, wrinkles are as much a boast as scars. They are a declaration of strength that does not wither with the passing of years, will too vicious to allow defeat, a soul too poisonous for a Shinigami to eat. And poisonous this soul was, for this was the Lionfish. One player among many on a stage, perhaps no more than a pawn, but still, when so many of her comrades had died, this woman had survived. Small, "insignificant", a dark-skinned immigrant from the Land of Lightning, one of the many dangerous fishes from the Fisherman's nets. With white hair twisted into a bun bedecked with her namesake's fins, this kunoichi was one of the few who could have, and had chosen to retire.

A touch of poison to the slimy skin of the octopus, and it stiffened and died. Looking at the shivering child, a smile played about her lips. "Hello, boy. I am planning on opening a restaurant. Unfortunately, my cook, due to trauma from an encounter with the Hachibi, has a deathly fear of such creatures as that lovely specimen at your feet. So, I need a bodyguard for that idiot. Think you're up to the job? I offer room, board, and a half-way decent education, for the low low price of your soul... so, want it?"

The boy nodded. Why not?

"Goody!" the old witch cackled, "So what's your name?"

The boy shook his head. Somehow, the movement distracted him enough to make him trip on a stray rock and fall into the water. He stared despondently as his newfound guardian guffawed.

"Well, never thought that I'd get to name a brat. Jitabata Tako then, nice and ironic, and not a mouthful. You're Tako now, so geddup kiddo, you've got a lot to learn!"

 **Though it's never clarified in-universe, Tako's Shadowking, but he has amnesia due to drowning. Hanaya obaa-san was a B-ranked Kirigakure kunoichi called the Lionfish whose parents were refugees from lightning. Yagura knows that it isn't his real sister he's sent to collect his real sister, but that's classified.**


	6. Kindness

"Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work."

-Mother Teresa

* * *

"If Orochimaru and his apprentice Yakushi Kabuto are the most controversial figures in medical history, Yakushi Nono, respectively their partner and adoptive mother, can be said to be the least. Known as the Bodhisattva, the Wandering Miko, and the Sensei, the Mother of Modern Medical Education balanced a shadowy life of espionage with an unequivocally humanitarian heart. Coined the Bodhisattva by one of her most successful students, her unique kindness meant that she became the Sannin Orochimaru's closest confidante. Careful reading of her notes and new progress made on decoding her mission reports reveal…"

- _A Brief History of the Golden Age: Medicine_

* * *

 **Kirigakure**

 **14 years after Purge of Uzushio. Countdown: 0.1 years to SWIII. 0.5 years to Kirigakure participation in war**

* * *

"Yagura-nii." Said Ginkanmuri.

"I would appreciate it," the apprentice said softly, "if you do not perpetuate that lie."

"True." Replied the Kaguya Guard. "Yet you are the Apprentice; not the Master. His will supersedes yours. Ginkanmuri must exist, and for now, I am she."

"A lie for the masses." The boy remarked. "Have you a name?"

"This one is the Kaguya Guard." The false Ginkanmuri answered. "This one gave up their name when this one joined the Guard. It has been lost."

Yagura looked into the distance. "I cannot speak for my sister, but I do not believe she would begrudge you her name, just as she would not begrudge it to your fellows. We are all sacrifices upon the altar of the village, after all, and in that, we have comradery."

The Kaguya Guard inclined their head. "Thank you."

Yagura sighed. The process of winning the affection of his future subordinates was a tiring one despite its importance. However, he had committed to his path. He had not balked at killing, therefore, he would not flinch in the face of tribulation. He offered the imposter a hand, and forced a lighthearted smile. "Come on, Gin! We shouldn't keep father waiting."

And there was no reason why he should not offer kindness to one to whom life had been far crueler.

 _Lie_.

There were secrets that the Mizukage was best not made privy to. The Karatachi were not infallible, and it was best to keep his eyes and ears away from the children, lest the changelings be discovered.

 _Or is it a lie?_

* * *

Minazuki guided the false Ginkanmuri's hand in a steady curve, helping her capture the shape of the dome in the skyline. "It's like this, see? You need to link the dots together just so. Draw it as accurately as you can—its highest point is even with the third leaf to the left of the vine, and there's a small imperfection on the right-most ridge that is directly above the left side of it right-most window. You have to copy down every detail, Gin-chan, because that's how you make an illusion convincing. If you can't make sure that you can create every detail when you don't have to concentrate on them at the same time, then you might make weird illusions where shadows don't behave like normal shadows and the buildings are all the same and not like how they really are."

"Oh." Ginkanmuri traced the line again. "It's not a perfect arch, and I will need to add little indentations for the brickwork texture, right?"

"Yep." The man confirmed cheerfully. "But don't worry if you can't make the three-dimensional effect perfect. If you're doing actual visual genjutsu, then you'll be building a three-dimensional space anyway, so you won't need to know how to make a flat plane look like it has depth."

"That's a relief," she noted, "but can you help me with the shading here, tou-san?"

Her father fell to the ground, clutching his chest, faking existential anguish, "I have failed as a father! My daughter feels that she needs to ask me to help her! Gin-chan, will you ever forgive me?"

Ginkanmuri—the Kaguya guard, curled into herself and giggled.

* * *

My favorite time of day was night. Bedtime, to be exact, though I'm not sure if the following hours wouldn't prove to be even better, seeing as I would be asleep then. But even if I stayed awake all night, I'm sure that I would find bedtime to be my favorite time, because that's when otou-sama would always make a-quarter-of-an-hour for me and tell me a story when he puts me to bed. Otou-sama hasn't stopped, even though I've been moved up to the Second-Caste Fifth-Year class and will graduate soon.

"So what shall it be, Kirisara? The end to the tale of the fish-stomach jian? Or another chapter of the Journey to the West, and the misadventures of the monk? Old missions and silly stories are for when you wake up, otherwise you'll be laughing too hard to fall asleep." Father was always cheerful come dusk, and he smiled, more freely and kindly than he ever did ere the gloaming.

"Can you tell me about another time the Tyrant of Qin nearly got assassinated, otou-sama?"

"Ah…" Father closed his eyes and leaned back. "You already know of the most famous assassin, Jing Ke."

"Yes." I nodded my head and snuggled deeper into the covers, " _Oh the winds howl, and the river doth freeze, as the warrior goes forth, his home never again to see_. He failed. All the attempts failed, but the Tyrant died anyways, even though he tried to become immortal by seeking the advice of sages and gods."

"Indeed. So, have I told you about the Master of the Zhu?"

"No."

Twanging, sad wisps of music twined through the air as an illusion settled onto my system. I had grown better at sensing them, but this one I won't dispel.

"The tyrant of Qin wanted to have his music played by the best musician in the lands, but that musician was not of Qin. He was the best friend of Jing Ke."

"He was the one to play that song." I guessed.

"Quite. The Qin king, fearing treachery, had him blinded before he was allowed to play in the king's court. But that did not stop him. Unbeknownst to the king, the instrument had been filled with lead, and at the climax of his performance, the king clapped his hands."

I could hear it, the complex notes coming from stretched strings beaten by a length of bamboo. The appearance of celebration, and beneath that effervescent vitality, which bordered on satirical vulgarity, an undercurrent of rage and sorrow. The man was playing for he who was cause of his heart-kin's death, he who was threatening his country, he who had taken his sight. Discipline restraining the strength of blows despite anger and grief and hate to freeze the world, mastery of craft translating into mastery of action. A soul poured soul into one last masterpiece. A swan song. A magnum opus.

 _Clapping_.

"He used the sound to pinpoint the king, and took up his instrument as a weapon of regicide."

The song silenced, and there was an almighty crash.

"He failed."

And the song started again, thin, soft, twisting. Weeping apology and crushing devastation for a failure to protect a country and avenge a friend, dearer than brother.

"So many tales that end in tragedy, so many lives lost, so much loyalty—such immeasurable devotion."

My father's words lulled me to sleep, with a tear sealing each eye shut.

I dreamt of friends lost and vengeance never had, love for a state and rage against fate, but was I dreaming of a long-ago musician, or the man who now was shadow of water? Genjutsus can not create that which the caster does not know, and Mu's assassination of the Shodai and killing of the Nidaime remain the source of much of my father's enmity with Iwa.

* * *

 **Konohagakure**

 **14 years after Purge of Uzushio. SWIII imminent.**

* * *

The results were fascinating. Nono delicately applied medical chakra. A single alteration reversing an A-T base pair produced a protein that was fluorescent in the presence of chakra, and if there were similar genetic instructions encoded in the DNA surrounding the mutation, then it might be possible to synthesize a reusable alternative to chakra paper or a method to discreetly check for past chakra use. Because the sample was sensitive, and it would remain fluorescent under a black light for hours after the initial chakra was gone.

There was a knock. "Come in." The woman said absently.

Her friend swept in. As usual, he refused to tie his hair up to keep it from contaminating samples, but seeing as the loose locks somehow never actually produced loose hair, she couldn't argue. Nono was maybe a bit jealous. "Good day, Orochimaru. How are you? And please don't come near me at the moment, this sample needs to be sterile."

A hiss of sibilant laughter came from her companion, "But dearest Nono, what adulterant would dare exist upon me?"

To accentuate his point, the Sannin let out a spike of killing intent. The man had become so accustomed to being approached only for selfish reasons that he kept trying to scare the spy away to forestall her leaving once she had gotten what she had wanted. But she was here to stay. Nono sighed. "If so, then I hope it's teachable. Infections kill in the field as easily as kunai."

She put the final product into the sample freezer and went over to wash her hands. "You aren't usually this circumspect, Orochimaru. What's the matter?"

"I have observed phenomena contradicting the claim that conformity to the Will of Fire is beneficial to shinobi having purpose, happiness, and satisfaction in life." The man brusquely said. "Explain."

"I will require further clarification." Nono said calmly, having grown accustomed to her friend's moods.

"Hatake Sakumo." The Sannin huffed.

"Oh?" The ROOT operative asked softly as she hung up her lab coat and walked over to her colleague, "Danzo-sama briefed me on the subject. Hatake-san failed his mission and pushed us over the edge into war, yes? And that garnered him the stigma of the village?"

"Yes. He valued his comrades, merely hastened the inevitable, and acted in accordance with the Will of Fire, yet the village turned against one of their own heroes in a heartbeat. What would the village have its shinobi do?" Orochimaru snarled in frustration. "It treats those that do not conform to its values as outcasts—that, I can understand. But it also turns from those who strive towards its ideals as well. Why?"

"People can be irrational," Nono sighed, "and it is easier to fault the tangible, rather than the abstract. Given that we have now been plunged into war, and so many of the people's friends and family will die, they would naturally… have strong emotions involving revolving around that fact, to put it mildly. Their fear for their loved ones would lead to anger, and then to hate, and then to malicious acts. Sakumo-san just happens to be a convenient scapegoat."

Orochimaru laughed, bitterly, "War fans the fires of our vices into infernos. Fear, tribalism, prejudice, xenophobia. They all come crawling out from the darkness, out of those neat little boxes they're shoved into at times of peace. And yet _they still don't see."  
_  
"I know." The woman rested her head on the man's shoulder.

"It's unreasonable!" He seethed.

"And yet understandable." She said sadly.

"Assist me in dealing with it."

Instinct had an affirmative rising to her tongue at the tone of command, but it was bitten back as another lesson learnt in her lifetime in ROOT conflicted it. Friendship, fear, compassion. Orochimaru was her friend _he was her mission (surveil, ingratiate)._ She mustn't, couldn't displease Danzo-sama. A good man was suffering, and she would not stand idle.

"Of course."

* * *

 **Kirigakure**

 **Countdown: SWIII imminent. 0.4 years to Kirigakure participation in war**

* * *

'No apprentice to the Sandaime could have survived, let alone thrived in their situation were they not Karatachi,' Yagura mused. The man had a habit of piling work on anyone he judged capable, and giving only minimal amounts of instruction in matters that he considered learnable through self-study. Even though Yagura, by virtue of bearing the name of the Flying Dragon Orange, was resilient in the face of pressure, he was beginning to feel the strain on his faculties. He was fortunate that, as a Genin, he had no need of his reserves on missions, since he rarely had enough time to sleep and replenish them. In that, perhaps his true sister would have fared better, as she had the advantage of a glut of spiritual energy to fall back on as a substitute for slumber. The apprentice allowed himself a moment of weariness, before picking up his finished analyses to submit to his master.

Entering the Mizukage's office—there was no door, one of the man's many minor methods to shape his image—he took three steps in, and bowed. "Shishou."

"Apprentice," The man said, calm as ever, voice faintly tinged with amusement. "You are early. That is convenient, as there is much that you will need to be informed of."

Yagura inclined his head, and held his tongue.

His master pulled a thick file from the stack of papers on his desk, so Yagura walked forward and rested his own binder on the seal-encrusted wood. "It is nearing Obon, and the Chuunin Exams follow soon after."

He did not elaborate, but waited for the boy to take in the information and put into practice what he had learnt. "Tensions are growing exponentially," Yagura said. "Kunai and senbon are being rationed, and there are preparations being made to substitute metal with whale bone. The decrepit and the callow alike speak of Iwa and Kumo, and noises of war can be heard even in the marketplace. War is coming, and we will be swept up into the tide. The Exams are a venue through which shinobi affirm ties and make overtures. They are one of the most major events of the year, made notable due to the presence of Daimyo and other nobles, whose support may prove essential to the war effort."

"Correct."

"Villages will send teams to ascertain where we stand and observe us."

"And so?"

The teenager grimaced. "I am your apprentice. My youth means I will be seen as a weak link, so many parties will attempt to acquire intelligence on Kirigakure through me. I am also Karatachi. Therefore, you want me to turn the tables and gain information from them in return."

Kirihamaguri smiled. "Not only that, apprentice-kun. You will also be taking part in the planning and designing of the secondary entertainment."

Yagura reined in his flash of rage. That the Chuunin Exams would mean his return to an arena was an unwelcome truth; the Fisherman's casual cruelty in reminding him that, stripped of their trappings, the Exams were merely a bloodsport, was demeaning.

"Understood." He replied flatly. "My orders?"

The Sandaime handed him the folder. "Iwa is nominally allied with Kiri, through a network of ties and obligations reaching back to the death of the Nidaime. As a result, though Kiri is relatively removed from the chaos that is the world's current affairs, it will side with Stone if push comes to shove. However, our neutrality means that both Konoha and Suna are willing to send teams as well, even if Suna is currently hostile towards Konoha. Intelligence suggests that Kumo is interested in an alliance, but it has a history of attempting to twist diplomatic contracts to its advantage. It would be unwise to have our hands tied when confronting Kumo, as its lands border ours. Therefore, your actions should not be taken as an overture of alliance."

"As to your assignment," the Fisher of Man smiled, "it is time to remind Iwa of our history, I should think. Something… sappy." He folded his fingers together and closed his eyes. "Yes, the tragedy of the Seconds would do well."

That was also a measured insult. When he had taken the seat, the Sandaime had portrayed the Nidaime Tsuchikage and the Nidaime Mizukage's deaths at each other's hands as a tragedy brought about by the pointless enmity between their villages, and had managed to spin it into a romance for the ages. He turned the public towards peace and used the pressure to force his counterpart to agree to an alliance. And as most conversations with his shishou were, the latter's remark about the "tragedy" was also a jibe at Yagura to force him to exercise his self-discipline. Gengetsu was Yagura's grandfather, and his imuoto had studied Mu's techniques. The siblings would be a powerful propaganda tool, and that made him hope that Ginkanmuri would be allowed to join him, if only temporarily. But he schooled his face.

"And the sword-dances too, Mizukage-sama?" He focused on the present and the task before him, and reminded himself that he was not yet so pressed for time that he could not rage in private.

* * *

 **Konohagakure**

 **SWIII imminent**

* * *

Nono was never ashamed. The Wandering Miko might be, if the mission required it, but Yakushi Nono - Sensei, never was. She was at least certain in her actions, and at times proud of herself. She walked openly with Konoha's bogeyman. Her students and beneficiaries could learn to accept it, or they could not. Either way, they would be forced to self-reflect. She would not be moved by whispers and stares, for so long as Shimura Danzo did not forbid it, no one else had the power to dictate her actions.

So, side by side with her friend, Nono went up to the house of the Hatakes, pariahs of the village. The door was opened by a haggard-looking Sakumo. "Orochimaru." He said, trying for a smile, "I was not expecting you."

"You are being ridiculous." The Snake Sannin announced, depositing a bag of groceries into the older man's arms. "The shadows under your eyes look permanent. How long has it been since you had a good night's sleep? A failed mission does not a failure make, and why aren't you taking care of yourself? You have no excuse. Let us in Hatake, I know for a fact that you haven't had a decent meal since you came back, so we're making something other than miso and rice today."

Nono, were it not for her ROOT training, would have winced. Surveillance and stalking, while par for the course in a shinobi village, were still not things that were done to allies—not openly when not threatening them, at any rate.

Sakumo let them in, a beleaguered expression on his face, which was at least an improvement on the exhaustion that was there before. "Kakashi's sleeping." He said quietly. "He's tired out from training." Unspoken were the reasons the boy had trained himself to exhaustion—to forget the glares directed his way, to prove himself a good shinobi.

Nono nodded. "Is the kitchen far enough to keep from disturbing him? Or should I watch how much noise I make?"

"It'll be alright." Orochimaru cut in. "Silencing seals were invented for a reason, Nono."

"But not for that purpose, I should think." She returned, carefree. "Your opinion, Sakumo-san?"

"Well." The man scratched the back of his head awkwardly, "I'm not good at history." The spy caught how his face fell for a moment before he forced himself to grin, "But we're shinobi. Even if that wasn't the seals' original purpose, if they work, then why not use them like that? But you needn't bother—"

"—Nonsense," Orochimaru interrupted, "it's no trouble; I can make the seals myself so it's not as if I'm going to be depleting a limited supply. Now stop fussing, Hatake, and _help_."

Plucking the fresh fish from the top of the bag, the scientist cleaned it with movements that, while swift and efficient, were more suited to a metal gurney than a wooden cutting board or kitchen sink. Nono picked up the eggplant - Rin-chan had confessed that Kakashi liked the vegetable during one of her medic lessons - and lay it on the counter as she began relieving Sakumo of his burden.

The three worked with quiet companionship, and a mismatched meal of steamed eggplant, tomatoes and eggs, salt-broiled saury, stir-fried beef and onions was soon produced. Kakashi had been woken by the smell and was given the task of setting the table, and was suitably appeased by the existence of eggplant to behave cordially towards Sannin and Sensei.

Orochimaru successfully struck up a conversation with Kakashi about the nature of summons, and with a bit of nudging from Nono, Sakumo joined in, expressions far more lively than before, freeing the woman to contemplate the destitute state of the grounds, the broken bottles thrown at the fences, the dusty surfaces and half-empty cupboards. Catching her colleague's attention, she signaled with ROOT signs _Stay? Guard. Emotion-postitive._

 _Confirm._

"Could we stay tonight?" She asked softly, "We'll make dinner too, as a trade."

"You really shouldn't," Sakumo demurred as his face fell again, "it would be a waste of time with the war on the horizon. You're needed..." _Unlike me. Please don't make me do more damage than I already have._

"No time spent in the company of friends is wasted," Orochimaru countered.

Kakashi watched, intent, the debate between godlings of the shinobi world.

* * *

 **Kirigakure**

 **Countdown: SWIII imminent. 0.4 years to Kirigakure participation in war**

* * *

My hand spasmed, and the soft bristles bent under the pressure, splotching the paper. I tore the ruined sheet away in frustration.

 _I miss pens._

I hid in the library once school was over. I didn't want to go home _no, to the house_ home. Not the empty guarded building, with its hollow halls and silent watchers, not to that horror of blurred realities and confusing mixtures of emotion, not to that hell where I did not know who I was and had my mind at the mercy of one who had none.

Hesitantly, I picked up the pen that I had just thought of. Were I Ginkanmuri, then I would remember the method of using the implement. But if it truly was just a curiously vivid fantasy, then I would not. I was afraid to try. But I had to know.

Trembling fingers set the tip of the cheap biro to paper—shinobi paper, not the delicate and absorbent sort still used by civilians and the more traditional shinobi.

I stared in horror at the result. Or was it relief? Either way, I knew for certain that those thoughts weren't memories—I didn't have the instincts to go with them, and instincts were the hardest parts of a mind to suppress. I was functional, so my mind couldn't be as damaged as it must be for something as simple as writing to be forgotten. I was Kirisara, and why had I dared doubt it? What absolute ungratefulness was needed to seek to reject my father. But why wa—the fear—dre—so oppressive I would _die_ to escape it all nail marks on my arms as I desperately tried to find reality blood shed bloodshed dancing on water and cordially greeting one who I almost called brother. I was Kirisara. Better to be someone than no one, no matter what that someone was, especially—

I packed and went to meet the Yu Guard at the door. I had no reason (no right) to hide any longer.

* * *

Terumi Mei found her house's door ajar. She reviewed the past week. She had just passed the early graduation elimination exams, which would mean…

She gathered her chakra, just in case and kicked open the door. Nothing. She looked up. Nothing. She spat a touch of acid at the ceiling (Mom could yell at her later, this was far more important.) Still nothing. Which left… She slammed a foot on the ground. "Stop hiding, Ao-ji!"

A man with slicked back blue hair emerged from the floor. "Got me, Mei-chan!" He said with a smile, "Congratulations on your success."

"Thanks, Ao-ji." Mei crossed her arms and looked pointedly at the messed-up basalt. "Kaa-san's going to be irritated with you."

Her mother's old teammate ruffled her hair—or tried to, the fact that she had tied it up made it impossible. "The kettle should be used to it by now. When we were teammates, we didn't even have proper flooring, just packed dirt. You having lava-release is a luxury and a gift, she should know better than to take it for granted." He ended with a huff.

"I know what you're really like, Ao-ji," Mei replied cheerfully, "So you don't have to pretend around me. Besides, do you seriously think I'd believe that 'in the old days, we died all the time, and we liked it'? Come on, 'in the old days'?" She looked pointedly to the north, where, a few squares away the market square and executioner's block was located.

"That is unseemly in its bluntness."

Mei shrugged. "I won't get my way through naught but sweet words. Bluntness is, as you told me, a declaration of confidence."

Ao snorted, "Trust you to take my worst lessons to heart. You're growing up so quickly, and your horizons are broadening. Tell me, what is this I hear about fruit baskets and an underground homework ring?"

Looking the Undertaker directly in the eye, the girl asked, "Do you mean that you don't know, Oinin-ji?"

The man's face remained expressionless, but his tone was heavy as he sighed, "I knew, but hoped I was wrong. It's the nature of the young to swim upriver, but I hoped that you would not actively seek that fate, not when that way lies sorrow and heartbreak and the loss of all you once were. But you've always been an ambitious child. I will support you, Mei-chan, if you are committed to it."

"I can't just watch as people like me are called names in the streets, Ao-ji, not when they could have been me, if I wasn't lucky enough to be born Second instead of Third. I have to change the world, or die trying." The almost-Genin stared into the distance.

"Enough of that, Mei-chan." The shinobi produced a box. "Today was supposed to be happy occasion. We're not going to mope. In my day—"

Mei sniggered. With faux irritation, Ao grumbled, "No respect for your elders these days. Here're chocolates from Ame, I got them during a ridiculous mission—honestly, that idiot youngster—why main-ANBU get sent on these missions, pig-headed thugs they are, I'll never know

* * *

 **Apart from the Journey to the West, the stories the Sandaime mentioned all come from Chinese history. The 春秋战国 （Spring and Autumn; Warring Kingdoms) period, to be precise. Kirihamaguri might be the most cultured shinobi in existence.**


	7. Windups

Revolution Windups, Great and Small

 _There was no clap of thunder nor flash of lightning, neither summer snow nor winter rain, nor even an unseasonal monsoon or rare clear day to mark Ringo Ameyuri_ _s birth. In fact, there was little to suggest that the newborn would grow to be one of the most inspirational women of her generation. However, that did not mean that the infant was absolutely average; her shock of rust red hair did little to endear little Ameyuri to her father, and it was the cause of much conflict in her parents_ _marriage as her father, U_ _meji_ _, found the hair color to be proof that his wife, M_ _ari_ _, had had an extramarital affair._

 _Ironically, the red hair was in truth the proof of his wife_ _s fidelity, as it was the product of the couples_ _shared recessive genes. But the marital strife in her family left a mark on the growing girl, and it motivated her in many ways_ _from her choice of assuming a highly aggressive persona that was determinedly_ _not Uzumaki_ _to her_ _decision_ _to_ _disregard her natural affinity and s_ _eek_ _out Yagura f_ _or training_ _. This was a highly effective in achieving her purposes: the focus on her potential Uzumaki-ship drew attention away from the far less fantastical suspicion that she was Terumi. This may have been essential to delaying the ultimate resolution of her parents_ _animosity, which boiled over in the months before Kirigakure_ _s participation in the Third Shinobi War and catalyzed the formation of Yagura_ _s Coterie._

 _-The Last Watch: An Account of the Last Decade of Chigiri and the Formative Years of the Coter_ ie

――-――-――-――-――

 **Kirigakure**

 **Countdown: SWIII imminent. 0.3 years to Kirigakure participation in war**

――-――-――-――-――

To be fair to Chigiri, days didn't often turn into clusterfucks; not for the general rank and file, anyway. That didn't mean that things didn't turn into disasters of epic proportions when they did turn bad. Which was why after Ameyuri opened the door and was greeted with the overpowering stench of iron and alcohol, she tripped over her father's prone body. A quick glance at the bloodstain on the man's shirt showed that the guy was dead and not her problem, so she looked up and scanned the room for trouble. Her gaze alit on her mom, hair damp from the shower and in fresh, if painfully plain clothes and staring into the distance.

Ameyuri coughed.

Her mom whirled to life, raising the kunai clutched in her hand.

Her mom was still in fight mode and might attack her without thinking, which was bad. "Mom?" She tried carefully, preparing to fling herself out of the way if needed.

"Ameyuri?" The woman blinked rapidly as she straightened up and tucked the kunai into its pouch. She looked down at the mess, then at her daughter's wary expression. Then she sat down. Carefully detached and still looking at a wall, her mom explained, "Your father was drunk. Attacked me. The old argument. Cheating. I killed him."

Ameyuri's father was—err, had been a Tokubetsu Jounin, but the guy had been intel; he probably hadn't dealt with anyone who could fight back in a decade. In contrast, her mom, despite being a Genin, was far more acquainted with bloody fights to the death. The drunk losing wasn't implausible, and besides, he deserved it.

"…kay, so now what? I haven't gotten lessons on corpse disposal yet, but I'm pretty sure that we could find a kraken or two for the body in the canals and hide the bloodstains with water and horseradish sauce. We'll say that dad hasn't come home yet, boo-hoo, and go about our business."

"NO!" Her mother all but shrieked the word, and was that terror in her eyes? "We can't. They'll know. _They always know._ "

"Who?"

" _The Hunters._ " She whispered, " _Them_. Infallible demons in bone white masks, unstained by the blood they bathe in. Their retribution comes swift and slow, swiftly taken, slowly made. Torment for an age _. I can_ _t run._ "

Ameyuri was understandably skeptical about the ominous proclamation.

Her mother took a deep breath and contracted her facial muscles, trying for a smile but only succeeding in a grotesque grimace. "Anyway, Ameyuri, nothing will happen. I will be arrested, then trialled, and I'll invoke Right of Replacement. Mizukage-sama is wise and just. I will be fine. You don't need to worry. Study hard and—"

The daughter was horrified. "You're joking, mom! You can't replace dad, by which I mean that you literally can't! Dad was intel and Tokujo, you don't have the knowledge or the skillset to do his job in his place and make up his value, let alone do it better than him. Besides, dad's cronies are gonna hate you and try to do you in. Right of Replacement only works when someone up there wants it to work!" She jabbed a finger in the vague direction of Mizukage Tower.

Her mother swallowed. "Mizukage-sama is cold but fair." She said firmly.

Blood pounded in Ameyuri's ears, but beneath the crashing waves of panic at their predicament, the part of her that won three in four field simulations and was absolutely _shinobi_ was a solid shoal in the storm, unmoved and calm. The situation was laid out, as clear as if it was just another training exercise.

Her objectives:

1\. Keeping her mother unharmed.

2\. Keeping her future intact.

Her opponents:

1\. The legal system

2\. Interested parties

a. Her father's cronies

b. People wanting leverage on her.

c. Baby-oar's enemies wanting leverage on him (?)

3\. Her mother's despair-driven inclination towards self-sacrifice.

Her assets:

1\. One get-out-of-jail-free card.

2\. Decent grades, and great potential value to Kiri.

3\. A rare lightning affinity.

4\. The accompanying attention from the swordsmen.

5\. Insignificance; none of the big guns have any reason to meddle, so there was a possibility for a fair trial.

6\. Her mother's love/attachment.

7\. Yagura. Baby-oar semp-kohai. Apprentice of the Mizukage, the big man himself, with enough political capital to help her if he could be convinced to.

a. Yagura's need for allies.

b. Yagura's friendship.

10\. Terumi Mei. Same as Yagura, except she wasn't nearly as close to her.

11\. The potential stain on the Terumi's reputation she could make.

The beginnings of a plan were forming in her mind. She didn't have much time. There was no point trying to get mom to run, and turning herself in might be the best course of action for mom. She nodded jerkily. "I hope so mom. I love you."

Then, she turned and ran out the door.

――-――-――-――-――

 **Konohagakure**

 **SWIII imminent**

――-――-――-――-――

It had been no hardship to sleep in the Hatake house for the night—Orochimaru's house was no home, merely a place for the duo to sleep for the night, and the laboratories' and hospitals' bunks were even less than that—at least her best friend's beds were _comfortable_. She woke to the fragrance of miso. It was just before dawn, the coldest time of day, so she slipped out of the covers and softly laid the body-heat saturated material onto the mostly asleep form of the Snake Sannin, who gave a semi-coherent mumble of thanks. The house had enough empty rooms for them to have their own, but Shimura Danzo encouraged a more…intimate relationship between the two, and it was easier to give the old man what he wanted to see.

Shinobi-silent steps brought her to the kitchen, where Sakumo-san was making breakfast, a pot of congee simmering on the stove besides the miso. He tilted his head up to acknowledge the woman—as expected of the White Fang, Wolf equal to the Sannin. "Couldn't sleep," He offered by way of explanation, "so I thought I could make breakfast instead. The congee should be ready when 'kashi and Orochimaru wake up."

"Thank you, Sakumo-san." She replied. "You must have been up very early to cook the congee. Forgive us for the imposition on your hospitality."

The man scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "It seemed fair. You did go through the trouble of making us dinner last night."

"It was no trouble—you are Orochimaru's friend." She returned, "And he has too few of them to ever contemplate not valuing them." She smiled, "You are loved, Sakumo-san, make no mistake of that. You are worth no less than you were before your mission."

Kakashi may have been the last to wake on a technicality, but Orochimaru only came down once the rest of the house were at the table. At her suggestion, they dined in the warmest room—the sunlit parlor, and the man hogged the brightest patch of light seemingly on principle. Sakumo-san had fried fish to go with the miso, and he had thrown a handful of greens into the soup before serving, so the breakfast was relatively well-balanced—more so than cup ramen, at any rate. Kakashi ignored the serpent summoner's half-hibernating state and began badgering the scientist on chakra theory and mission stories, continuing where he left off the night before when his bedtime forced him to stop despite his insistence that _I_ _m fine, dad, shinobi don_ _t have regular sleep schedules so it_ _s good for me to start early!_ while fighting back a yawn.

Sakumo-san's cooking smelled terrifically appealing—CRASH!

She did not hesitate. Stomach acid contained HCl. Her body knew how to produce the substance, it was merely a matter of using iryo-ninjutsu to synthesize it elsewhere. A thought and a deft twist of chakra brought glowing scalpels to hand as she attacked the intruder, only to be buried under—slimy, amphibious skin—more vulnerable than the human sort to the fumes from hydrochloric acid. She breathed out, control keeping her own membranes from being affected and was rewarded with visible damage and a sound of agony. ROOT would not send agents to attack in broad daylight unless it was a test but she had passed that stage unless Danzo was trying to use the attack to affect bonds?

She was assaulted by needles. _Hair_ , her senses identified. _Protein_ , she thought. Hair was one of the harder to destroy parts of the human body. Hydrogen bonds. Alpha-keratin's hydrogen bonds would be weakened by water, and her hands formed the seals for a simple suiton with nary a thought.

"Jiraiya." Orochimaru growled, killing intent flooding the area. Kakashi? Unharmed. Focus. Jiraiya. Sannin. Toad summoner. Ninjutsu master. Loyal? Malicious? The only haki was Orochimaru's. The intruder was beyond her ability to defeat in a straight fight. Orochimaru had once been evenly matched with the man, had won and lost in equal measure. A twist of her left hand swirled the water into a wave crashing onto the white-haired man.

Orochimaru attacked, fuuton making whirling blades as he took the offensive, and she moved back. This was an enclosed environment. Inhibitive effect from desire to not damage the surroundings. She would prevent collateral damage to allow her partner to focus on the battle. She redirected a katon out of the window.

Keeping most of her attention on the battle—non-lethal, by mutual consensus, as far as she could tell, though Fuyumi the black mamba's presence cast that in doubt—Nono noticed that Sakumo was trying to corral his son as the boy half-heartedly tried to escape, the battle between two Sannin too captivating and full of demonstrations of new and interesting jutsu for him to even think about the danger. "Tou-san! That was a _toad-specific jutsu_! It's _only_ used by Jiraiya of the Sannin! It might be a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to see it!"

The surprise the words caused in the Toad summoner created an opening, ending the battle with Orochimaru throwing his teammate at her feet. She used a glowing green hand to artificially neutralize the functions of the sodium-potassium pump, inducing dystonia. "Another medic, Orochi-teme?" The target asked, grimacing as his muscles spasmed against his will and his limbs moved jerkily.

"She's just as scary, even if she's," The man leered, "Not as busty as hime. Wow."

Orochimaru hissed, and Fuyumi wrapped herself threateningly around the toad sannin's neck. "Why are you here Jiraiya?" He asked dangerously.

The toad sannin shrugged, "Same old, same old you know, visiting onsens around the nations, and enjoying all the buxom babes around the world-for research, hehe..." A trail of blood ran from a nostril, and Nono took the liberty of exerting unnecessary force as she pinched it. "My roaming took me back to Konoha, and let me tell you, no matter Kumo's thick-thighed goodness or Taki's exotic beauty or Yuugakure's sexy, sexy ladies, nothing beats a Konoha kunoichi."

Sakumo groaned as he stopped corralling Kakashi since the boy had taken a step back, disgust plain on his face, clearly refusing to get any closer to the man.

"Jiraiya, please. My son is here."

"Exactly! Men should know about the delights of the fairer sex! That said, teme, do you mind letting me up? Your lady friend sure did a number on my summons."

The damage was not fatal. Though there were chemical burns on the amphibian's skin, she had held back sufficiently to avoid damaging anything vital, and what wounds there were could be healed—she had experience from healing her opponents after spars for a decade. Instead of Jiraiya, Kakashi now looked at her and her colleague in admiration.

――-――-――-――-――

 **Kirigakure**

 **Countdown: SWIII imminent. 0.3 years to Kirigakure participation in war**

――-――-――-――-――

I had… friends. Not assigned acquaintances brought together by circumstance, as Ginkanmuri-chan was to me, but rather like-minded individuals whose paths in life happened to meet as we all found a calling in illusion. When sensei had asked for volunteers, I had raised my hand on impulse, and to my surprise, Aiko did so too. I had paid little attention to my classmates before, too preoccupied with otou-sama's extracurricular assignments and not participating in any of the Academy's after-school clubs—my future path was set already, after all. But that single point of commonality between me and Aiko had expanded as we gained camaraderie through the shared frustration at the play's demands.

Every department had a budget, but since genjutsu was purely chakra and control, we had little need for money. So Ginkanmuri-san made an executive decision and declared that since chakra required fuel, we were to use the provided money to purchase sustenance, since that would indirectly provide us with our supplies—the chakra we would use. It seemed a bit audacious, but no one was objecting. Tako-san had gotten Hanaya-obaa-san to give us a private room on the second floor so that we could plan in peace, which was why we now trooped to Hanaya's after school every day. It helped that the food was plentiful and moreover, safe. Hanaya-obaa-san was a monikered kunoichi of not unnoteworthy ability, so despite her old age, we would not be harmed by the more volatile of Kiri's elements, as long as we were under her protection as customers.

So, we planned and practiced and produced. Dishearteningly, I found that the genjutsu we were using did not come naturally to me despite my additional tuition in and talent for the art. Otou-sama explained that the branch I had been schooled in was as comparable to the mass visuals we were weaving as an Elemental Release was to a Shape Transformation, despite both falling under the category of ninjutsu. He had planned for me to progress from individual targets to the higher Z-valued ones that affected multiple people in due time, but had accelerated my training schedule in response to my self-imposed assignment. The special effects division needed to create genjutsu for a few major areas: the setting, especially weather; the characters, when we needed to give the impression of an army - weighing cost against benefit, genjutsu was far more convenient than actually getting people to dress as voiceless soldiers; the ninjutsu, since generally, the jutsu used in fight scenes were beyond Academy students.

It was a fun process. Ginkanmuri drew perfect sketches for the scenery and then I was swept along by our sense of unity as we supported her debating with the director about the level of detail we were allowed to apply. _Apparently_ , the other setting department couldn't paint backdrops with equal levels of realism so we'd best tone it down, the reasons being "besides, this is a play, not a reenactment", " _drama_ (italics added), and " _the dedication is appreciated, but can it be done?_ Yes, of course it could be done; we had our pride on the line as the most intellectually gifted students in the school. Shiro proved to have a knack for getting illusionary jutsu to follow the actors' movements, which led me to collaborate with him as we worked with the choreography department to make sure that they would appear to be produced by the actors. It was a relief that we were excused from homework for the time being, though our respective senseis' identical glares promised hell to pay if our grades slipped overmuch in the span of time that we worked on the play.

I wisely neglected to mention that I was still engaging in the illegitimate trade of homework on the side when they told us that.

――-――-――-――-――

Kirigakure was as it always was; a comforting chill sunk deep into his bones, and countless ripples and currents from countless actions joined and interacted to form the intricacies of his village. It was not the strongest: Konoha held the higher ground in both the quality and quantity of its soldiers, fed and supplied with the richness of its country; Kumo had access to the powers of legends, as well as the mettle to use them. It was not the weakest: Taki was reliant on a particular resource; Kusa's internal conflicts were no less than Kiri's.

His village was built upon salt and sand. It was power won from audacity, irreverence distilled into contempt, a peasant rebellion now led by a runaway prince who was the last and least of a generation of heroes.

Before him had been Byakuren, a visionary with self-taught wisdom rivalling the ancients, and the courage to spit in the eye of a god, long-since been killed by Mu before his work was done. Then came Gengetsu, the heart and soul of their nation, charismatic to such extremes as to unite bitterly feuding factions under the village's single banner. Yet Gengetsu's greatest strength was turned against him as he fought and loved his enemy, falling to Mu even as he killed the man, emotions twisted into too many knots for him to survive that final battle. In the end, that left him, Masataka-shinno. He was no hero, just a princeling who loved his mother enough to swear fealty to a minor official who had revolted against Imperial rule, slain a god and wrested from it equality to a Daimyo, and offered a desperate young man a chance to realize his own ambitions without sacrificing the woman who bore him, and brought that young man into a brave new world full of opportunity as well as tribulation. In gratitude, Masataka had offered all that he was to Byakuren, who was near god in his eyes—if the old man had usurped power from a kami, then he was as deserving of its place as it was. The princeling had shed his titles and his name for that old man, and Byakuren had named him anew as Kirihamaguri. As Kirihamaguri, he had been consigliere to his predecessors—put to good use his learning at court—and supported them as they guided the newborn village through turbulent waters. He had been witness to their falls, and following that, as the only one with the power to claim the seat, he had worn after them the hat of the Water Shadow.

Kirihamaguri had neither Byakuren's force of personality, nor did he have his right to lead made undisputed by divine mandate. He did not have Gengetsu's gregarious nature. It was not instinctive for him to sooth the hurts and angers of the clans and the newcomers, and effortlessly balance the needs and desires of his peoples—for peoples they were, not a single tribe. He had not their love, not the immeasurable devotion offered to the Nidaime that had allowed him to walk fearlessly in the village, certain that every man, woman, and child there would be his bodyguard. He had only his understanding of the darkness of human hearts, bitterly learnt through a childhood-that-wasn't in the imperial court, tossed to and fro by struggles between factions, powerless save for the machinations he could manage, upon which his and his mother's survival depended. He would not see the dream of the Shodai and his successor perish - even if he could not create, he could at least preserve his predecessors' creation well enough that there remained a foundation upon which his successor could build.

It had been a delicate dance, the playing of one's grievances against another's. But this game was one he had been schooled in from birth, the poisonous milk on which he had suckled, the birthright he had once refused but now brought to bear. The petty politicking of his subordinates was laughable compared to that of the Dragon Court, and it had been a relief to find it _so_ easy to keep them just divided enough not to attempt civil war between factions, and yet cohesive enough to be an effective fighting force. But he had slipped and failed once, when he was yet green to the office, and failed to hold back the monsoon of blood that rained upon the islands that were the corpse of the kami the Shodai and his swordsmen slew.

He let out a breath.

Reminiscence was of no consequence now. He had directed two wars at a Mizukage's side, and now the time had come for him to lead one. The two wars before him had both demanded the price of the village's strongest, and there was no indication that this one would be different. The young waxed, and the old waned, and for all that his decline had slowed to a stop, the generations that came after him could in time grow into a strength greater than his. Then perhaps, just perhaps, they might be able to rejuvenate this beloved corpse of a nation. He would see that there would be a village left to lead after this terrible war, and see that his chosen heirs would succeed in proving themselves greater than he or see them perish in the process.

It was a fool who compared war to shogi—there were far too many opposing wills for it to be two players at battle, and far too many fronts for a single board to embody it. Alliances were being affirmed, and discord sowed among enemies. Equally of import was the matter of the two blood-Karatachi who had proven to be the most potential-filled of the lot generation. Together, they would have the strength to do more than merely maintain this living-dead village. That was, of course, if they could benefit from his teaching, and spare themselves the effort of rediscovering what he had already learned.

Yagura would take his place as the Shadow – who, ironically, was seen in the light - while the sister would carry the weight of Mist, and apprentice to him in the art of genjutsu. Neither would walk a kind path, but his daughter would find her first steps to be the hardest, while Yagura's greatest trials lay in the future. The core of a genjutsu master was the heartfelt need to control another's perception, brought about by fear and desperation. Beneath their feet must be an immutable certainty of self, lest the foundations of identity soften and slip, bringing down with it the wielder's hold on reality. Ginkanmuri, in being forced to struggle for every scrap of her very self while fearing repercussions for her failure to present the correct face to the world, would experience the ordeals that would fuel her making into a mistress of the mental arts that none had ever seen. But she was failing; one identity was being consumed by the other, the two now no longer held at balance. The illusion of stability such a consumption afforded her would be enough for the children's illusions, but for the kinjutsu that were the essence of his repertoire, more would be needed. He would have to arrange something for it. If successful, then the experience should solidify Kirisara's sense of self. If not...the she would have proven too weak for his teachings, and better to have her break early than snap after being made capable of greater damage.

Yagura would not—could not be his grandfather, idealistic and taking the world by the storm; he had not the ability to be so charismatic. He was too much the Bloody Mist's son, desiring revolution first out of distaste for the current reality and only then out of hope for a brighter future; he would instead walk open-eyed into the darkness, made fully aware of the truth of reality before he changed it. _Then_ he would act with full awareness of the consequences of his actions. The Yondaime Mizukage would enter the world of shinobi not as a callow youth, but as a shark among minnows. Karatachi Yagura would have a legend built by this war, and in doing so, earn the loyalty of his soldiers despite his lowly birth. When the Fourth ascended, it would be to cheers and blessings and unanimous adoration.

Before all that, however, was another front to fight. Masataka's silly great-nephew was coming to visit, and while genjutsuing the Daimyo into submission was tempting, he could not do so without inviting repercussion further down the line. Yagura-kun could, however, cut his teeth on the civilian royalty, and it would be an excellent chance to introduce the rival heir. A smile crept onto the Fisherman's face. Afore hardship, there was yet one more step that no more difficult than chasing an overturned turtle—laughably simple.

――-――-――-――-――

It was accepted that Hozuki preferred cooler climes, for the price of their hydrification was that bereft of skin, the water in their bodies evaporated at a far quicker rate. Karatachi Ginkanmuri's blood was diluted to impotency, but certain preferences could be justified still. The Hozuki Guard mentally apologized to the more warmth-favoring of its fellows for forcing them to haunt the cold rooftop garden when wearing, as _she_ did, the face of the girl. _Girl._ _She_ savored the word, savored the definition. Her bloodline's closeness to water, sometimes manifested as shifting shapes in more ways than one. The Guard were allowed no more than the bare bones of identity—surname and skill. Anything else was just hampering happenstance. Like water in the absence of a vessel, the Hozuki Guard felt formless, ill-defined and discomfited by being _neither nor_. It had been a relief to pour into Karatachi Ginkanmuri, to be _girl_ instead of _tool_ and _sister_ instead of _Guard_.

She was interrupted from her musings by the presence of the apprentice's unsworn sword approaching the building, chakra impression harried and desperate. She liquified and flowed out the drainpipe and into the foulage-hidden pool that had been made for such a purpose, and emerged from the grove.

"Ginkanmuri!" The seemingly older girl gasped out as she saw her, "Where's Oar? I need to speak to him! It's urgent." She coughed. "A matter of life and death!"

She did not need to think. "Follow me." The apprentice should be training, and while the canals and roads would be crowded, there were underground passages that should be clear. They ran over alligator-infested water beneath stone-paved streets. While the stench would stick to their skin for days and reveal their engagement in subterranean adventures, it would invite no further repercussion, for they were not infiltrators seeking to enter through a seeming chip in the belly of Kirigakure's armor.

They moved swiftly over the scummy muck, and training directed her through tunnels and around corners, and finally, they climbed up and onto training ground two. The apprentice had apparently sensed their coming, as he had holstered his staff and dismissed his summons—the Hozuki Guard could see slashes in the ground that most certainly did not come from the apprentice's hands.

"What's the matter?" He called as he ran to meet them.

Ameyuri collapsed against a tree. "Dad got drunk. Attacked mom, got killed when mom fought back. Served the sonuvabitch right, but mom's now under arrest for murder and she's planning on using Right of Replacement, though we all know she doesn't meet the requirements."

The swordswoman pushed herself off the tree and looked the apprentice in the eye. "Please, Oar, you have to save her."

The apparent siblings jerked their heads to the south in unison as they sensed an approaching signature. Kirisara burst in. "Yagura-san!" She cried, "Mei-senpai—she mentioned Ameyuri's mother—the Terumi are considering making it a clan problem."

"I'm not Terumi." Ameyuri intoned darkly.

Swiftly regaining her composure, Kirisara straightened and inclined her head. "True. However, they have claimed that it is a matter of honor, and called for an investigation. They have enough power to intercede on your behalf."

"Presumably to ingratiate themselves with you or allow the circumstances to push you to agree to adoption." Yagura rubbed his face tiredly. Then he straightened.

"It appears that you are spoiled for choice, Ameyuri." He said politely. "Whose assistance would you like to accept? Mine or the Terumi's?"

Ameyuri whacked the apprentice upside the head. "Don't be an idiot. We're friends. 'Course I'm asking you for help—"better the devil you know" and all that. So, whaddya want? Don't answer that, it's obvious. Formal dec, right?"

"That is the preferred option, yes." The apprentice replied, "That would allow me to act without inciting much outcry, though the downside is that you'll be officially recognized as one of mine."

"Sure, why not?" The redhead shrugged, "Can't have you throwing me away and getting a newer model, can I? Not when I've spent so much effort to sink my claws into you."

"There are other avenues of action," He said, "as I am sure you have considered."

"Yeah. Say that I did it, then graduate to get off scot-free, or try to get my apprenticeship early and then try to get my shishou to help. Oh, and there's also the not-really-an-option hiding the evidence thing. But as I told you, baby-oar, I'm formally swearing myself to you, 'cus it's gonna happen sooner or later. And you need to advertise that you want an inner circle to form one anytime soon, and this'll do the trick while also giving me seniority, so it's a win-win."

The apprentice nodded solemnly. "Kirisara?" He asked, "The formalities?"

The Mizukage's daughter replied swiftly. "There must either be three neutral witnesses of Chunnin rank or above or it has to be public, among shinobi, not academy students. I advise a complete ceremony, as formal as possible, which would mean… blood and brine for the binding of the oaths, sake as well, though the alcohol can be boiled off beforehand. The words can be traditional or non-standard, but if they aren't, you'd best let me look them over. For expediency's sake, I suggest the marketplace after an execution—human blood makes an impression, and traitor's blood writing loyalty is powerful symbolism."

Ameyuri reacted to the mention of execution, but recovered. "Kay. Then Mei?"

Yagura grimaced. "Like it or not, she's good, and if we don't deal with her, she'll be a rival. Since none of us know how to get rid of her, the other choice is alliance. Bright side's that Terumi's not a risk-taker, so if I offer to make her second-in-command, she'd agree to alliance—she's not stupid, a power struggle would weaken us a whole and she might not even get the job."

"You said you weren't replacing me with a newer model, Oar." Ameyuri commented cheerfully.

"Swordsman and Jounin at his right and left hands, and a shadow to faithfully shadow the Shadow in his shadow." Kirisara quoted helpfully, counting the repetitions of "shadow" off on her fingers.

Yagura pinched the bridge of his nose. "That was a joke, 'sara."

――-――-――-――-――

 **Konohagakure**

 **SWIII imminent**

――-――-――-――-――

"Yakushi." The toad sannin greeted from the shadows—intimidation tactic, presumably. "Standard Ne, with the regulation medic surname and a random first name. Or rather, you should be. But you're the 'Sensei', beloved teacher of most of Konoha's junior medics. Or do you prefer your other title, _Wandering Miko_?"

She inclined her head in acknowledgement, and it was a mere coincidence that the action could be interpreted as confirmation, allowing it to bypass the restrictions of the seal on her tongue.

"So, tell me, does Orochimaru have a those five bars as well? Or is that why you're with him day and night, to see if he should be given one? You are the unparalleled spy, so are you engaging in subversion and asset acquisition domestically as well as internationally?"

"I met Orochimaru-san of my own volition," She returned calmly, "Because he seemed in need of a friend, and I could offer an ear for what he wished to say and no flinching in our interactions. In return, he taught me, and for that, I am grateful."

"A sycophant then?" Jiraiya sneered.

"No. A partner. I am uniquely suited to being someone who can be talked to with little risk, after all. I am also skilled in my own field of science."

"And it's just a coincidence that you're a blond medic?"

Anger rose in her breast, and she allowed it to blossom as she replied, voice still calm and clear. "If you believe that your teammate's criteria for friendship is merely nostalgia, then you have been away for too long, Sannin no Jiraiya, to the point that your teammate is a single-dimensioned caricature in your mind."

"So you say that Councilor Shimura isn't trying to get his hands in Orochimaru?"

"Orochimaru-san is a valuable asset." She commented cryptically, "Our collaborations have yielded fruit."

The spymaster's eyes widened imperceptibly. "So it was _your_ idea to come meet Sakumo?"

"No. It was Orochimaru-san's own. I merely provided some potential avenues of action." She chanced a slight smile.

"I see." The man paused. "Thank you."

――-――-――-――-――

 **OMAKE**

――-――-――-――-――

To: Councilman Shimura Danzo

From: A certain interested party _or two_ or three

Relatively honored councilman, we write this letter to formally protest your highly irrespectable behavior regarding individuals in your employ, as well as libel and slander.

 _Sensei is the second coming Tsunade-hime. If Tsunade-hime pushed through the legal reforms to make field medics possible, then sensei was the one who made field medics feasible. So, she has more than made her contributions to Konoha and has no obligation to provide that which she isn't willing to give. She does not wish to pursue a romantic relationship with Orochimaru-sensei, let alone a sexual one, and that is her unalienable right. You have no reason to satisfy your fangirl-like shipping tendencies on our two iryou-ninjutsu senseis. Nor do you have any right to attempt to break up Orochimaru-sensei and Sakumo-san._ ** _They are the OTP._** Also, stop sending your ROOTlings to try to affect their relationships. They're socially inept enough to quote _Icha Icha_ at da-Sakumo, Orochimaru, and Nono in an attempt to encourage epic fornications. Meaning a threesome. See a Yamanaka, you PERVERT!

Talking about libel and slander and bullying, STOP. The Uchiha aren't demons, and even though the sharingan is awesome, it isn't a 100%KO thing, and it isn't as if every Uchiha has a sharingan, so stop spreading rumors that we're being slow on purpose to try to make Konoha fight for longer to get more power. Seriously, go see a Yamanaka, all that paranoia is going to give you hypertension. That said, spreading rumors to defame the White Fang and try to traumatise his son is against the Will of Fire.

Any offspring of Orochimaru will have to wait until he manages to grow a live pig in a jar. That won't happen until after the war. Stop making it longer.


	8. Catharsis

_There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio_

 _-Hamlet_

* * *

 **Kirigakure, the next day**

* * *

I was lucky to have such good friends as Aiko. Meeting her eyes, I stood up while leaving my bento on my chair, a genjutsu making me appear to still be seated. She understood immediately, and like we practiced with the stage effects, gently took hold of the delicate web of chakra, transferring the maintaining of the illusion to her. She waved and winked, and I was free to make my exit.

I met Yagura-san at the bottom of Mizukage Tower. Yesterday's events had begun a dangerous game, in which a single misstep would mean doom. Compounding that, we were wanting in time; the soonest available execution was today, which was why I was "playing hooky", as the colloquialism goes.

"The execution is scheduled for sunset." He said grimly, "Will it be enough time?"

I would see that it was. I nodded. "Hai."

He shunshined me to a rooftop, where we were hidden by greenery. I laid out my notes. "We'll be editing yours first, Yagura-san, since you will be communicating the relevant information to the audience.

Then I began reading, "Ringo Ameyuri, with Heaven and Earth bearing witness, thus do I declare: I have naught to offer thee but blood, sweat, tears and toil. I promise you no glory, only purpose. I promise you no victory, only perseverance. I promise you no survival, only immortality. As thou shalt shed blood for me, I shall do the same for thee. I shall remember thee and labor to return that which is given. Thy tears I shall wipe away, and for thee will I shed them. For if you will be my sword, I—"

"—shall be your shield." Yagura-san finished softly.

"Of course you guessed, Yagura-san." I smiled shyly, "As to be expected of the future Mizukage. And you know me well."

"But why did you choose it?" He asked, almost tentatively, bereft of his usual aura of confidence.

"It is as I understand it." I offered hesitantly, "To each their ability, aligning their power to achieve a single goal, true partnership instead of mere servitude, united by a common purpose."

"Ginkanmuri?" Yagura-san asked in a tremulous voice, looking at me with painful, inexplicable hope.

"Pardon?"

He let out a bitter laugh. "It was the greatest of ironies that you were named Silver Crown. Of all the castles mother could have chosen, you were given the mark of royalty and the currency of a long-gone realm and it proved to be too prophetic: as you were named, so were you claimed, made kingsblood as tithe to our devil-lord."

Certain imaginations stirred, and I quashed them down.

"Please do not test me so, Yagura-san," I said. "I am the Mizukage's tool, as we all are. My service is to the office as much as it is to my lord father. Once you ascend, I shall be yours to wield. Yet all the same," I cast my gaze into the distance, where, beyond the grass and hedges, the small silhouettes of shinobi and civilians quarreling and threatening and spectating indifferently could be seen, "I admire your dream of a better world, and would like to be of assistance to you in achieving that." I smiled, "If you would have me, of course."

"No." He shook his head.

I faltered, but training allowed me to keep my composure. "Of course, I understand. My ties to otou-sama run deep, so my loyalty will always be suspect. Should you claim the hat, it would only be reasonable for you to keep me at a distance. Still, I would rather not have otou-sama's efforts in making me be wasted…"

"No!" He shot up. "You are my equal—not a tool, _never_ a tool. Do you not remember? Memory is easily hidden but not so easily destroyed."

"Wisps," I admitted, "dreams and fantastical fragments that do not belong in the world."

"Not in this one, perhaps." Yagura-san said. "But you once spoke to me of another world and a past life, _a world of miracles, with men reaching towards the heavens and beyond, delving deep within the earth and the sea, taming lightning and raising the dead. A world that does not hold its breath in anticipation of the next war to shake it to its foundations. A world where the king is as bound by the law as the commoner_."

He pronounced the awkward and foreign syllables carefully, forming _intelligible_ words. Instinct had me shaping breath and sound to reply in the same, " _Yet Ginkanmuri exists, and she is not I_."

How did I know a language spoken by none? How did—my thoughts were interrupted by my brother.

"You are my imuoto." He said, "No matter the name, no matter the face. The waters of our womb are the blood of our covenant. Another may bear your birth-name, but only you are my sister. It was between us that promises were made, in the garden of dreams where we first struck out into this then-unknown."

His eyes were alight with desperate determination, his every word was tinged with near-reverence, his normally blank features were twisted by painful hope. And I _remembered_.

"You're my partner."

"Indeed nii-san. Through coercion, out of duty, because of love. Take your pick."

"I weighed a life in cold blood." Curiously, he wasn't actually concerned with the killing part, only the motives. Chigiri for the win. "I judged my goals to be worth more than my classmate's life. I can make that choice. I have made that choice. I will make that choice. I had power over my peers, at that moment, so I was able to enact my choice during graduation. I will have power over the whole village should I become Kage. The life of a classmate for a step along the path. What would I judge Father's life to be worth? Mother's? Ameyuri's? Yours?" His expression was one of absolute terror, and my heart bled though I knew the cause of his fear, which was dark.

"We are shinobi." I replied instead. "The sacred compact between Kage and shinobi has existed since there were the leaders and the led. The shinobi give their Kage their lives, in faith that they will be used well. Death is a constant companion, and all we may do is hasten or delay its coming. We serve, in the belief that in doing so we make of ourselves a legacy beyond that of mere mortality, and in faith that our service will be to our benefit, or the benefit of that and those we hold precious."

"But a Kage's judgment is not absolute."

And that was the crux of the matter. "Failure of ability may be remedied. Failure of intent is far more troubling. Should you become responsible for a village of people, what will your actions be?"

"I will not be a second Sandaime."

I was relentless. A second childhood had relieved me of much of my hesitancy, and instilled in its place a touch more of ruthlessness than acceptable in my first life. "Then what _will_ you be?"

He closed his eyes. "A sheath for bared blades, a shade for the weary, an architect of prosperity. I will not judge my wants to be worth more than those of the village, and I will make Kiri one in which the mists are no longer bloody, the weak are no longer exploited, and people are no longer fearful."

"But power corrupts." He shuddered. "If so, then sworn to my service, betrayed, would be the countless individuals with whom I had made oath. Including you."

I rose then in challenge, hand darting out to snatch a kunai from his holster. I held it horizontally between us., and then spoke, "Serve Kirigakure then, and be served in turn. Guard her. Heal her. So long as you are to the benefit of the village, my power is yours, and my will is to see thine done. Should you fail to hold true—"

He grasped the hilt, and when he continued my sentence, his tone was desperate, tension palpable and rising. "—you will return me to my path." His voice reached a crescendo, "Look upon me and be my judge, my mirror, my counterweight! This I charge you, twice-born sister mine!" Chantlike, he continued, "As you be sword I be shield, service in return for service. I swear to be defender and healer and builder and rebuilder, and should I stray from my pledge, let all ties I have upon thee be made forfeit. Brother to sister, leader to led."

We spoke in then unison, reciting words stolen from old texts, "Heaven and Earth bear witness to that which Man's will scribes. So spoken, so mote it be."

I shuddered. My brother held me in his arms, and he smelled of the salt-sea untinged by blood's iron tang, with a whiff of citrus fragrance from the ridiculous flower he kept pinned to his staff, which I now saw in a different light. Permeating our home had been the smell of our namesake oranges, and scent-memory was hardest to wipe and easiest to recall. How long had my brother been trying to bring me back? It was fortunate that the most indisputable proof of my true identity—a foreign language had survived, but that had only been because the Sandaime had not known of its existence. "Nii-san," I whispered into his scarf, letting the material absorb my tears, "I was so lost."

He too was shedding tears, in relief and in thanksgiving. "But now, you're found." I whacked him in response, laughing breathlessly. I was Yagura-nii's sister. That was beyond doubt. Sworn to be his better half, to see his dream done, the first of his coterie—it had been formed unofficially long before yesterday.

Yet I sobered. I was Ginkanmuri, yes, but that meant I was _Karatachi_ Ginkanmuri, Silver Crown. As Yagura had said, we had bought our clan's survival with our lives, meaning that I was compelled to accept my lot, bitter though it might be. For the sake of the many, for what had already been sacrificed, I could not escape being Kirisara, no more than I could escape being a kunoichi of Kirigakure. That damnable training of the Sandaime's drove me to find harmony between my two selves. I was Kirisara. I was Ginkanmuri. Kirisara was undoubtedly my own identity, while Ginkanmuri was a cloak donned by many.

Yet no matter the persona, I was bound to the Sandaime, and willingly of my brother's coterie. The only question was _him_ ; The Prince of Darkness, the Exile, the root of Kiri's suffering. But I could not muster the fervor to hate him.

Kirihamaguri was my father, and the manner of my adoption aside, he had been a good one, as far as Kiri, or even general standards go. He had been a patient teacher: affectionate, supportive, and fiercely protective. No matter what terrors I had undergone, in my mind had remained the ironclad certainty that no failure of mine was irredeemable, no accident was irreversible, no problem was beyond by father's power to fix.

I had felt safe, and had been comforted by how it seemed that so long as I did what I should, everything would turn out all right, and given that I could not change my circumstances, was it not reasonable to adapt—I stopped and examined my thoughts. My false father had cultivated in me a deep desire to please, and a childlike love of him—that was no deed of a good man. I took a deep breath, and decided: I may love him, I may not, in the end, come hell or high water, I will have a Yondaime.

The most relevant thing right now was saving Ameyuri's mother, but I was distressed, and my emotions were running high. I smiled, and thought, ' _Śūnyatā_.' Comfortingly familiar detached serenity settled over me. I gathered my notes from where I had dropped them.

"There is only so long Aiko can last," I told Yagura. "So we don't have much time. Besides, I have my head full of rubbishy purple prose like 'My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late!', and it has infected my writing, meaning that I need to clear it up before I accidentally mark you as Ameyuri's liege-lord. Let's continue."

We managed to get everything done before the lunch break ended, and I snuck back into the academy without mishap. That was that. I then spent the afternoon trying to get back into my Kirisara mindset to keep my recovery secret for when I inevitably interacted with my father.

* * *

 **Konohagakure**

* * *

Kunoichi, especially medic-nin using senbon for combat was a foolish and harmful stereotype. Senbon took skill to use effectively, and even more skill to bring out their full potential. It was difficult to use them in close quarters due to the absence of hilts for safe gripping, and their little mass meant they had less inertia than kunai and shuriken and were therefore more susceptible to being blown off course. Nono was tempted to wince at the surprise on her students' faces as she explained the concepts to another class of prospective field medics in the remedial combat lessons she had added on the sly. Given that there was a war going on, she was not going to lose one of her kids because of a lack of proper combat training, and while Senju Tsunade's medic code functioned well in theory, the fact that enemies would not be so kind as to respect medic pacifism meant that they should be as trained as any other soldier on the battlefield. Especially since it wasn't as if shinobi wars had a clear front, given the frequency of sabotage missions behind enemy lines.

"All the same, senbon have the advantage of being light to carry and easy to conceal, so you should not give up on them but rather save them as a weapon of last resort. Hide a few in your hair or your sleeves, and keep them where you can access them even if you're tied up. Now, as you will need to save chakra for healing, any style of combat you choose should be chakra-light, therefore, I advise a focus on bukijutsu, taijutsu, or genjutsu. Save the flashy jutsu for the ones who need that validation." The joke was met with giggles.

She moved on to talking about different kinds of weapons, poisons that were both cheap and effective, what to do when you were taken hostage and how to take advantage of the "medics don't fight" stereotype. It wasn't much, but if her help could save even one more child from a premature death, she would be happy.

Once class was over, she dismissed her students with the reminder that not only should they help each other, they could go to their teammates for help, or, if they were refused, they could come to her as well. As the twenty or so academy students filtered out of the classroom, talking animatedly, she began packing her notes and demonstration equipment away. If she hurried, she should have just enough time for a bowl of ramen before she had to report to Danzo, who would probably assign her another long-term infiltration since her familiarization period with Orochimaru was up, and given that Jiraiya had returned, the two Sannin were most likely going to be deployed together soon, freeing her up for field missions as well.

She dreaded the torture and killing that would soon be her future. "Nono-sensei?"

She looked up. A girl with purple markings on her cheeks—Nohara Rin was standing by her desk. Nono straightened. "Yes?"

Rin bit her lip, and asked, "You said that we could come to you if we had trouble with combat skills, so I was wondering, would you mind, um—"

"—tutoring you? Of course, Rin-chan! But you are an excellent kunoichi, so while I am happy to help you improve, you shouldn't think that you are weaker than you are."

"Thank you, sensei." The girl replied awkwardly, looking down at her hands, "But I'm not asking for myself. It just that my best friend—Obito, is the last in our class, and he wants to be better but no one helps him. The teachers think that he should get help from his clan, but his clan doesn't like him and they don't teach him either, so while I try to help, I don't know what to do! And he's going to be sent to the front lines for sure, so his life is going to be in danger and he needs to be able to fight and sensei I don't want him to _die_!"

Nono nodded. "I understand. If he needs tutoring, I'll try my best, but I won't be available on a regular enough basis, so I'll ask around and see if I can get someone to help as well. Will that be okay, Rin-chan?"

The girl sighed in relief, "Of course! Thank you, sensei!"

"My pleasure." She gave her a gentle smile. "It's getting late. Don't take too much time to get home or your homework won't be done till midnight, and then you won't get enough sleep."

"Oh!" Her student finally noticed the setting sun. "Then I'll be going, sensei. Goodbye!"

Rin raised a hand to wave as she ran towards the door

"Goodbye!" Nono called after her.

Their conversation had taken too long for her to get ramen and then report, so she headed in the direction of the Hokage tower. Better to be early than late.

* * *

 **Kirigakure, the same day, in the afternoon**

* * *

I was met at the school gates by the curious sight of Kabutowari's swordsman—Akebino Jinin with a boy. "Hey there, lil' kunoichi!" He called, waving at me. "Your father sent me to take you to his office today 'cus I'm going there anyway with this little raincloud." He indicated the boy beside him, who was rather gloomy, with long olive-green hair and eyebrows drawn into a sulking expression. The jounin-'s well, bulk, as well as his accent and smile gave me the odd impression of Santa Claus. Well, if Santa was the nicest of seven unrepentant mass-murdererers. Politeness dictated that I greet them both, so I headed over and first bowed and said, "Jinin-san." Then I gave a far shallower bow to the boy and said, "Salutations. I am Kirisara. It is a pleasure to meet you."

The boy glared, first at me, then at Jinin-san, before spitting, "Raiga. Kurosaki Raiga."

At a patient application of steadily increasing killing intent, he caved and ground out, "A pleasure."

Kurosaki. Black Hoe. It wasn't the produce name that swordsmen were traditionally given, but the fact that his first name was Raiga, Lightning Fang, along with his presence at a Swordsman's side dispelled what ambiguity his surname communicated. Which meant that he was a threat to Ameyuri's place among the Seven. Yet while Ameyuri had become a Swordswoman in canon, he had apparently succeeded her. I remembered joking that Kiri's jounin had a habit of collecting small children and produced Raiga as an example in my past life. It was confusing. Luckily, Kirisara was polite and curious, so I could fish for information without raising suspicion.

Under Jinin's indulgent eye, I asked, "You have been named as a swordsman's apprentice, have you not, Raiga-kun?"

He growled, "What's it to you?"

"I'm Kirisara." I explained pointedly, " _Kiri_ Sara. Kiri of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Shichinin Shū, while you are one of the Shinobigatana Shichinin Shū, my future colleague. Should I not seek to understand my future colleague better?"

"Colleague?" He sneered, "As _if_. You don't see, do you? Not even when the truth stares? Glares? Blares? Flares? Rare? Hare? Here?"

"What truth?" I asked politely, leaning forward slightly to show interest.

He huffed but continued, "Sewers and canals in the same village. Fourfold paths. What are they? Deep arteries. Shallow veins. Flesh mutilated, the product of deicide. Blasphemy. Desecration. Carved by maggots and fleas and lice jumping about crawling in and out pests and scavengers and parasites. Little creatures that hide under cloth at funerals, graveyard critters creeping. That's what this is: just a giant drawn out funeral and how **GOOD** it is!"

I noticed how his expression had lightened as he spoke, growing brilliant with mania and madness as he spoke of the affairs that occurred after death. Few would wish to hear his mad ramblings, so my spellbound listening should earn me a smidgen of goodwill.

I turned my face to him and encouraged, "Funerals?"'

He grinned eyes alight with a feverish spark, a stark change from when we had met. "Funerals. Released back onto the elements, burial by fire, earth, water, and air. The climax of a life, its greatest event, a glorious celebration of the metamorphosis from ephemeral to eternal, elegies and eulogies for an extinguishing. Even when a life is utterly forgettable, a funeral forces everyone to mark it, to remember, and isn't that the greatest wish of mankind? To make a mark and be remembered? Death is mortalkind's gateway to immortality! And they are beautiful! Wonderous affairs, the greatest occasions of a lifetime—hah! Nay! A deathtime! Funerals are affairs of trust to return a body onto dust as so much flesh and bone is just meat now. What is a corpse then? Only a vessel for memory. And what is a memory? A wonderfully malleable thing! Virtue and vice exaggerated minimized morphed mixed painted in pastel and watercolor! It's a true lie and perfect for a funeral, which decks remains in pretty things to hide the corpse-pallor, burns incense to conceal the smell of rot and corruption. Just as trappings hide corruption, so do doleful countenances hide darkly varied hearts. It's the greatest irony! The uncaring dead doled up for the hypocritical living!"

"That is a unique view." I commented, "But do funerals not evoke grief even when there is none? Compelling even the unwilling to be united by sorrow through the pressure of societal expectations? And would that not make their mourning genuine, instead of being just a mask?"

His eyes gleamed. "You listen." He whispered. He continued, "To feel does not stop a feeling from being a mask, as rage hides fear and hate hides despair—"

"—time's up, kids." Jinin-san chuckled, "Kirisara-chan will need to wait for us to report and then meet her father."

Raiga appeared to be reluctant to go, so I offered "I'm in the fifth year under Kaya-sensei."

He brightened, "I'm sixth, Hashidoi."

"See you tomorrow?"

"Of course!"

He waved.

I stayed in the lobby while they went up, and took the opportunity to practice fading into the background, casting my attention adrift among the soft hubbub of voices. I heard snippets of gossips, a few bits of code that I definitely did not have the clearance for, and something about Terumi and the Ameyuri situation.

The Houzuki Guard approached. They were the one who had helped Ameyuri. "Kirisara."

I followed them up to my father's office.

His eyes were closed as he leaned back in his chair. "Raiga is a fascinating young man." He said as I entered the room, dismissing the Houzuki Guard with a wave of his hand.

"Indeed, otou-sama."

"His rants are not delusional ramblings, however. They are residue. Come. This is no place for such discussions."

He brought me onto roof, where, to my surprise, karatachi hedges grew along with strangely twisted bonsai whose roots all stretched into a small reflecting pool. My father disturbed its surface wit a flare of chakra, and once the pool stilled, I could perceive a shimmering membrane anchored by the trees—the bonsai had been twisted into a privacy seal—that was _sagecraft_.

"Kurosaki Raiga may not remember," Said my father, eyes once again closed, "but he was once my apprentice. He proved unsuitable, however, and I broke him, but I thought seeing that his future was not completely destroyed was the least I could do, hence his apprenticeship to the swordsmen. Now he is but Kurosaki Raiga, nursing a rage he does not understand, haunted with the memory of things he was not meant to see. I wonder, child, if you will succeed where he did not."

"Of course I will, otou-sama." I replied softly, "I will not fail you." For that was the devotion Kirisara felt.

He chuckled lowly. "Perhaps. Your will is strong, and you have progressed much, apprentice."

Apprentice. It was acknowledgement, and acknowledgement overjoyed the part of me that was Kirisara, while as Ginkanmuri, I read into it a subtle undercurrent of threat. The mists gathered thick below us, but the air was clear at these heights—they seemed unnaturally close to the ground.

"Thank you, otou-sama." I answered easily.

"So Yagura-kun was the appropriate anchor." He noted. "It will take an even more destabilizing experience for you to lose sight of who you are now, and the Karatachi do not forge brittle blades. Perhaps you will endure, emerge as steel and not scrap, given that you have dedication beyond that of shinobi sevenfold your age. You have passed your first trial, hidden face of the coin."

Even when apparently called out, bluff. "Do you bid me to learn resilience from Yagura-san, otou-sama?"

He smiled, "Come now, child, do not play coy. You rage, and not without reason, but is spite enough to sacrifice reason? You have yet to know why I tested you so."

I took the bait. "Kurosaki Raiga was broken by concern, and yet I was cast adrift to seek a self from shattered pieces, mind stirred up and made murky. Why?"

The Sandaime had closed his eyes again. "Kirisara is a pearl."

"I do not see what my being the precious pearl upon your palm has to do with this."

"Kirisara is a pearl." He repeated calmly, "An abrasive seed of foreign matter planted in the flesh of a clam, which, in response to the pain, coats it in layers of self, until it is no more foreign than any other part of you. Such is Kirisara, an impression of identity shaped into an aspect of yourself. If you could not make peace with that dichotomy of being, you would not have gained the certainty you now have about who you are, which is the precondition of learning genjutsu of the sort that turn illusion onto oneself, and to defend against mental attacks being reflected back by the subject."

I gave a tight nod. "Understood."

"I trust that you have a greater goal in life than patricide."

Of course I did. I had no reason to kill Karatachi nee Houzuki Minazuki.

He sighed. "Such myopia does not become you, child. Kage do not retire, and my death will occur no matter whether or not you have a hand in it, after which what will your purpose in life be?"

Pressure mounted in my head and I felt a growing need to speak. I twisted my chakra in reverse, shattering the genjutsu. I then met his gently amused gaze calmly. "I will have a Yondaime."

"Still sloppy." He chided, "A Yondaime you will have, but what will you do then? It is too easy a thing to be made into a dream."

I wanted to create, not only destroy, defend instead of attack, join my brother in the realization of a seemingly impossible dream, and make mockery of destiny with it, and for that, I was willing to kill and harm and heal both myself and others. It was something that I had always known, but it was only now that I had been pushed into putting it into words, and even out of Sunyata, I was wholly at peace. "Ah." Said the man who was not my father. "Now, you see."

I did, somewhat, in the sense that instead of just deciding follow my brother out of an abstract sense of justice, I was now possessed of the bone-deep certainty that I walked this path to reach its end, not just to walk it to reach an end. Therefore, no matter the hardship, I would forge forwards; no matter the burden, I would remain standing.

"Then let us address your childish denial." He said flatly. "By law if not by blood, you are my daughter. Ginkanmuri has become a role occupied by many, while Kirisara is unique to you, as I am sure you have realized. Still, I recognize that you are more than a mere pawn on the board. As I am the Fisherman, you are the fledgling taken from the nest and raised as my own, my hunting bird who dives into the deeps. You are my Cormorant."

Another ridiculous name to add to my pile of indicators of possession. So that was done, and little had changed. Clearly, I had gotten my purple prose from the Sandaime, who is, sadly, my father. Hopefully, my brother was alright.

* * *

OMAKE

"As we all know, chakra is composed of spiritual and physical energy. Food replenishes physical energy, but good food replenishes spiritual energy as well. So, that idiot who is only eating ration bars should stop, he isn't taking care of his own body."

"So we have an legitimate excuse for buying Hanaya's instead of just eating school food?"

"Of course!"

[aside] "Shut up! Do you want to eat cafeteria food?"

* * *

 **While this chapter is mostly conversation, the next just needs to be typed out, so expect it within a week. Raging at the Sandaime, Suggestions for Nono's accidental problem fixing, or just a "3" is welcome.**

 **Next chap: Yagura gets accidentally called out by Mei on his habit of profiting from getting people into sticky situations, not that he noticed. Now that he does, the boy is going to develop a complex at this rate.**


	9. Half the Sky

**As promised, the next chapter, in which Yagura gets a rival, is a bit entitled, and realizes a few things about himself while traumatizing himself in the process. The coterie's gender ratio is abnormally balanced for something from a shonen fanction, and even a bit skewed towards female, depending on how you count members, who seem to have a habit of being red-haired, powerful, and female. Raiga finally finds someone to talk philosophy with, Mei's awesome, and no one will come straight out and say anything. Oh, and everyone hates the Mizu Daimyo.**

 _Women hold up half the sky._

 _—Mao Zedong_

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

 **Kirigakure, also in the afternoon**

Dango, squid, or octopus tentacle? Choices, choices. Ameyuri browsed the food stalls that popped up around the square, doing a brisk business with the crowd gathering to watch the execution. If nothing else, the guys and gals would be getting their money's worth today. Squid was too chewy, and she wasn't sure that the octopus tentacles were actually octopus, so dango it was. Paying for her stick, Ameyuri ducked out of the stall and elbowed her way to a vegetable crate to stand on. She wondered who was doing the executioning this time. Sadly, she wasn't going to be betting anymore (Yagura helped her cheat by giving her the ID ahead of time and then they shared the winnings, but nobody will take her bet after their connection becomes known).

She caught sight of her father's cronies, Ugly, Uglier, and Ugliest—were they drunk? Eh, no, just pretending to be to try to sucker someone into taking their bets—seriously, did they have no dignity? And then, flare of chakra, KI plus something a bit more pointed, and the crowd fell silent. The prisoner was gagged and escorted by a pair of ANBU: normal ones, regulation chin-triangle masks and generic haircuts. Following them was dum dum dum, Biwa Juzo, with a cracked sword. Huh, that made sense: the swordsman needs to fix his sword, there's blood here, why not?

There were jeers and wolf-whistling since the prisoner was a woman. The woman's hair was down to her midback, tied with a length of coarse white cloth. Kaa-san would be looking like that too. And suddenly, she lost her appetite. Well, good thing there was only the bitterwort ball left, and she never liked that anyways. The girl dropped her remaining dango onto the ground, then schooled her face. She had more to worry about right now. Concentrate and save everything else for later. There would be high stakes out on the field too. As long as this turns out well, kaa-san will be alright.

Still, she was worried. "Last chance to back out." Murmured a voice by her ear. Yagura, in a henge, and she suspected that the reason the utterly patronizing brat liked henging so much was because it made him seem taller.

"I said I would join you, O-fucking-ar," She hissed furiously, "Stop motherfucking doubting me."

Oar quirked his lips. "Better now?" He asked.

The flare of angry irritation had burnt away most of her nervousness. Oar and his mind tricks. Honestly. "Yep."

The sword came down with a thunk. The crowd cheered. "Ready?"

"Ready." Yagura confirmed, and then disappeared in a swirl of cool mist and a few blue-green petals.

She counted to ten and ran the words over again in her mind. By the body, Biwa had finished his cleaver fondling and was getting up. That was when Yagura walked forward into the open space, deceptively casual. A hush fell over the crowd as the Mizukage's apprentice's presence became known.

Ameyuri strode through the crowd, people parting before her on instinct, sensing her mood. She took a breath. "Karatachi Yagura!" She called out. "Through might and mind you have earned my esteem, I would walk with you side by side on the road of life, lead it to silent service unseen by mortal eyne, or glorious death upon oceans vast."

Yagura met her eyes. "Ringo Ameyuri." He began softly, and wow, those were totally Mizukage-style speech techniques, "This I do declare: I have naught to offer thee but blood, sweat, tears and toil. I promise you no glory, only purpose. I promise you no victory, only perseverance. I promise you no survival, only immortality. Will you stand with me?"

"I so choose." The swordswoman replied, "Beneath the Heavens, upon the Earth, before the Sea, I so choose, with the people to see. Be my guiding star as I set sail, the trade wind and the smooth current, while I bare for thee my blade, and with thee compact make. Henceforth for thee blood stains my brow, and from this moment on blood marks our oath."

She dipped two fingers in the cooling blood and drew them across her face.

Yagura mirrored her, before speaking, "As thou shalt spill blood for me, I shall do the same for thee. I shall hold thee in high regard and labor to return that which is given. Thy tears I shall wipe away, and for thee will I let them fall. For if you will be my sword, I shall be thy shield."

The blood dried tight, pulling at skin. Yagura dipped his sleeve in the rusted bucket of brine (executioner's washing-water) before continuing, "I give for thee salt water." He said, as he raised his hand to her face, "Be they sweat or tears, for thee I willingly shed them, so that I may relieve thee."

He wiped her crusted streaks away and took a step back, two brownish red lines stark on his pale cheeks.

"Coterie?" She offered a hand.

"Coterie." He confirmed, and from above his head she could see the expressions of her father's cronies frozen in shock and the beginnings of terror creeping up.

Ringo Ameyuri smiled.

 _OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO_

The feeling of victory did not last long for Yagura.

"Decent for an afternoon's work." Drawled a voice from an alleyway, "The symbolism was heavy-handed, but at least it wasn't cliché. But you're milking this apprenticeship for all its worth, aren't you, Karatachi Yagura?"

It was the most dangerous student in the academy disregarding Kirisara, Terumi Mei. The girl's crimson hair had been hacked off haphazardly and hung loose about her shoulders, giving the member of one of Kirgakure's most noble clans a wild and delinquent look. The impression wasn't helped by how she leaned against the dirty alley wall, seemingly unconcerned by old blood and other foulness getting onto her dark red blouse.

"Terumi Mei-san." Yagura greeted levelly, "It seems that you forget that power unused is power unmade. Ameyuri is my friend and ally, who else would I exercise my power for if not her?"

Mei pushed off from the wall and narrowed her eyes at him. She paused for a moment, then said, "I can't tell if you're an idiot, an idiot savant, or a genius. Given that Mizukage-sama did choose you, I suppose that you aren't an idiot. As to the other two… if you weren't the Mizukage's apprentice and chosen successor, that stunt you pulled would have gotten both of you killed for high treason for sabotaging the chain of command. As it is, you were skirting pretty close to an oath of fealty with those lines of yours."

"As you said, Mei-san, I am the Mizukage's successor. I would have thought the Spare of the Terumi to know at least that an apprentice is the master's heir." Said apprentice countered evenly.

"If an apprentice is worthy, yes." Mei said snapped sharply, "Mizukage-sama's judgement may be good, but that's no guarantee that you'll become Yondaime, and now you've tied another's fate to your own—publicly at that, so there's no way her worth will save her if you fall. Congratulations. You tied her hands thoroughly."

Yagura kept his face expressionless, but Mei had pointed out the hints of a worrying pattern. Like imuoto, Ameyuri had no way out but through, yet both girls gave their allegiance willingly despite that. In defense, he coolly countered, "Grand words of concern for one who watched and waited."

Mei snorted, "I wasn't watching and waiting. I knew that Ameyuri had a benefactor. I was going to wait until Ameyuri got his help before offering my assistance with whatever else she needed. I just didn't know that her sponsor was you."

"And what, pray tell, is so objectionable about me?"

The girl threw her head back. "Kami, you're full of yourself, aren't you? Here's a bit of free information. You aren't the first apprentice Mizukage-sama has taken. It's an open secret in the First Caste that there were others, older, younger, smarter, stronger, and where are they now? Nobody knows. Just because Mizukage-sama saw potential in you doesn't mean you'll shape up. Statistically speaking, you have a one in five chance of success. There's no such thing as a former Kage-apparent--you end up in under either the hat or the shroud, and anyone connected to you gets tarred by the same brush."

Mei's warning was rather hypocritical, given that she was aiming for the hat herself. Unfortunately, given that Mei wasn't formally recognized as a contender for the seat, he couldn't call her out on it without the girl denying it. Yagura was tempted to scowl. "In short, you have no personal grudge against me, merely doubt for my likelihood of success, which should not concern you. If so, then why did you accost me, Terumi?"

"I'm here to deliver a message. The Terumi, by which I mean the dotards we call elders, think that the Ameyuri situation is an utter embarrassment. They want you to declare an engagement and tie her permanently to your name."

Yagura leaned back against the wall, deliberately making his body languae casual. "Lie." The Karatachi pronounced. "The Karatachi have always been where the cuttings of other trees are sent to disappear. It's why we have a family hedge instead of a family tree. Should Ameyuri become Karatachi, it would as good as confirm that she was grown from your stock, and that you were consigning another branch to where limits are broken. Your skill in reverse psychology is on par with a five-year-old's, or even less, Terumi Mei." He met her gaze squarely, "However, rest assured, I will not force a friend into so ludicrous an arrangement, nor dishonor a soldier by treating her as a civilian."

Mei shrugged, "I didn't think you'd agree, if it helps, but it didn't hurt to try to trick you."

The ten-year-old shrugged. "Nothing more than my young and tender heart, Mei-nee-chan."

Mei was Chigiri, down to the bone, so she couldn't wholly repress a coo at the creepy childlike behavior. The slight movement was somehow enough for strands of her shortened hair to fall onto her face. The girl brushed them away irritably. The strands sprung back as a wind gusted through the alleyway and the girl hissed in irritation. Yagura pulled a hair-tie from his wrist out of habit. "Here. Training accident?"

Mei took them in surprise, but nodded. "Yeah. Hair got caught in my lava. Burnt the tie too, so I just hacked the whole thing off. You keep these for Ameyuri, since you braid your sister's hair before school, right?"

Yagura confirmed it. Given that the Ginkanmuri Mei knew was a Guard with years of experience, and he had never mentioned the matter of his sister's hairstyle, the fact that Mei knew about it spoke worryingly about the extent of the academy student's spy network.

Mei tied her hair back, then grimaced, before sighing, "What the hell. You're not totally insufferable and I was planning on working together with Ameyuri's sponsor anyway. You might just be a Genin squirt, but you're a Kage-track Genin squirt. I'm not suggesting anything permanent, but we might as well temporarily join forces."

"Acceptable." The boy replied, "But will you not join my coterie? You would be my right hand, superior to all but one."

Mei laughed, "You're really full of yourself, Mighty-Apprentice-sama. Nope, I'd rather see how far I can go, rather than take the easy way out and have it bite me on the ass later. Save me a spot though!"

She waved and jumped onto the roofs. "You're just as full of yourself, Mei!" Yagura called after her.

"I know my worth!" Mei shot back, "And I'll redirect the competition!"

Yagura felt a grin break over his face. He was still grinning after Mei disappeared from view. He had a lieutenant and an ally, and his sister was back. His sense of goodwill towards the world at large was so great that he left the trio of thugs foolish enough to attack him alive with no major wounds. Even the news that one of the face-pinching old ladies that were his former clients was part of the Daimyo's entourage wasn't enough to put a damper on his mood (though it came close).

 _OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO_

"When the Daimyo's entourage comes," The Sandaime said, "the Crown Prince will be among them. He is an eight-year-old titled Hirohito, and despite the fact that he is twice your age, he is far less mature. You are a daughter of Kiri, and the laws of this village take precedence over the laws of the courts, therefore, you are eligible to inherit. The Daimyo will see you as a threat, so I advise you to target Hirohito instead."

"Is it your will that I seduce him?" I asked flatly.

My father raised an eyebrow as a sense of pressure—raw intent built up. "I raised you better than that, Kirisara." He said softly, but for once, I could tell that the threat was not directed at myself. "The waters of the court are treacherous, and the affections of the powerful a fragile bark with which to sail. You are a shinobi of Kirigakure, daughter, and that means you walk upon the waves, standing upon your own power and relying upon that which cannot be deprived from you. You will not be beholden to a man. That said, while a prince's heart is fickle, his desire for a confidante will hold true. Present yourself as an equal, or sufficiently out of context." My father smiled in a way that could pass for self-deprecating, "The blood of dragons has a taste for danger."

He should know. He was, after all, the Exiled Prince.

I dipped my head in acknowledgement.

The Fisherman tipped his head back and closed his eyes. "You may breathe freely now, dark side of the coin. Henceforth, the Karatachi have no part in our interactions. Your first ordeal is over, and a war looms on the horizon. A heavier burden will only be counterproductive. Rest now, and savor these days, for the memory of their light will be your succor in the darkness to come. Until such times as it becomes necessary, I will offer counsel, but I will not compel you to obey me."

"Understood." I said impassively.

The man straightened, and like a switch being flipped, he ceased to be moribund. "What would you like for dinner then, Kirisara?"

It wasn't a peace offering. The power imbalance was too great for it to be a peace offering, but it was the man's way of indicating that while nothing had changed, it was not wholly an unfortunate thing. I tucked my knees to my chest and thought. "Udon?"

 _OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO_

When my father returned from work to tuck me in, he sent me to the dreamlands with a voice filled with nostalgia.

 _Said the Daimyo to the fellahin, "My armies number beyond your comprehension, you are but an upstart. Should you not bow to me, they shall_ sweep _over your island, and you shall surely be destroyed."_

 _The Shodai replied: "The wrath of a Daimyo may make a thousand thousand corpses, and incarnadine the earth, whilst a mere peasant's rage can stain but five feet with blood, and yet, O Daimyo, that fury will also garb the land in white."_

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

 **Konohagakure, someday.**

"Uchiha Obito?" Sakumo squinted at the scribbled address. "Yep, should be here."

He knocked on the rickety door of the small house. There was a crash and a yelp of "Coming!"

The door was opened by a round-faced boy wearing bright orange goggles. "White Fang!" He gasped, "Wow! Why are you here, are you here for obaa-san she's asleep now sorrybutI'msureIcanmaketeaforyouwhileyouwait. Erhm? If you want?"

Sakumo scratched the back of his head. He doesn't hate me. "I was looking for you actually, Obito-kun. Rin-chan wanted to find you a teacher, so here I am."

Obito gasped, "Wow! Rin did that? She's awesome but the White Fang? You're my hero!"

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

 **Kirigakure, the same afternoon.**

"The Daimyo has finally deigned to send us their party composite." The Sandaime said. He paused. "Pity. Had they tarried but a little longer, we could have told them that all the inns were full and that they had no choice but to sleep in a repurposed shanty. As it is, we must provide accommodations for the Daimyo and his wife, the crown prince, two concubines and the least imbecilic quarter of his court."

The statement was met by a wave of chuckles. Kiri shinobi, as descendants from a peasant revolution, held little love for royalty.

Yagura busied himself with memorizing the personal information provided by his dossier.

"Eh? The wife's son managed to survive another year. That's how many now, seven?"

"Eight." Stated an unmistakably toneless voice. Walrus, head of ANBU. A sadist hidden in the skin of a dead halibut.

"How is the boy to be treated?" Yagura asked, "He is young enough to be molded away from his father."

"He's only going to be here for a short while." Countered Miho, head of supplies.

"Seeds planted can sprout in the unlikeliest of places." Noted the head of the desk-nin, a balding man in his forties. Yagura needed to find the man's name before his ignorance was revealed. He made a mental note.

Yagura briefly wished for his actual sister's Sunyata so that he could refrain from taking part in petty office bickering.

 **OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

 **Kirigakure, noon, the day after**

At lunch the next day, I looked for Raiga in the courtyard. Sunyata had people's eyes slide off me, guaranteeing that I would be the one who approached him, and not the other way around. This was deliberate. By actively seeking him out, I would make Raiga feel more wanted, as I doubted there were who willingly sought his company.

He was on a bench by the pool. The higher density of mosquitoes deterred most students, so he was alone.

"Raiga-kun?"

His eyes widened, "Kirisara-chan?"

"I said I would come, didn't I?" I beamed at him, and offered my open bento. "Otou-sama agreed to let me bring sushi, since it's easier to share. Would you like one?"

"I would, indeed." Raiga plucked a roll from the box, and awkwardly tried to offer me access to his bento in return. It was plain, designed for efficient nutrition at the expense of taste, and as close as a fresh lunch could come to a ration bar. It was a blessing that father had taught me ways of cheating when it came to consuming such meals. I picked a chunk of boiled whale from the box and popped it into my mouth, turning an illusion on myself to give the tough and tasteless meat some semblance of flavor.

"Yesterday, we were discussing grief, and the parameters of truth. Shall we continue?"

Raiga didn't bother with pleasantries and immediately continued yesterday's monologue, now polished by a night's sleep and thought. "To feel does not stop a feeling from being a mask, as rage hides fear and hate hides despair, until one becomes the other in transmutation. That is the heart of the school of cinnabar."

"Deception, and self-deception," I guessed, "For in their extremities, truth is used to trick, and falsehood is used to reveal. Funerals bring about the unconscious deception of self through suggestion. The school of cinnabar is the school of discipline, is it not? More than any other, it requires the ability to hold at an impossible point of tension a dichotomy. Therefore, it is the school of spies."

He grinned, "Precisely. From lie, truth, and from truth, lie, our only assurance is that we all die. Anything else is a matter of perception, and perception is malleable—we could be dreaming a dream within a dream whilst being a fragment of another's dream."

I swallowed the tough meat, which, for safety reasons, retained its original texture, and took a piece of nigiri sushi from my bento. I then frowned, "That is not the philosophy of the school of cinnabar, which still remains within the boundaries of reality."

I could see how Raiga-kun was delighted by the fact that I was listening closely, since he enthusiastically explained, "That doubting of reality—that's the School of Butterflies, one that discards rational thought to dance at the brink of insanity. Zhuang Zhou dreaming of being a butterfly to awake suddenly, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou, and yet unknowing whether he had but dreamt he was a butterfly, or was a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Even so, both will die, so death is still the ultimate reality. It's a gate into the unknowable."

I shrugged, "That's if no form of Tensei destroys that truth."

"Reincarnation." Raiga glared, sparks flying off his bare arms to repel and murder mosquitos (I wore long sleeves and pants to keep them from bothering me, not that they did much) and channel his irritation productively, "A poorly understood field rife with contradiction. No matter the number who claim to have returned from the lands beyond life, none remember them."

Awk…ward. I was one of those who had returned from beyond the Styx. "Do you seek to make a study of death then, Raiga-kun?"

"No. There are enough mysteries of life to unravel, and enough ignorance in these shambling masses to mock for me to need more."

"You are referring to our comrades as revenants?"

"Yes."

We blinked in unison at the killing intent that tried to slice through the air. It was closer to a rock thrown at a wall then a spear piercing armor.

"Found someone to be creepy with, crazy?"

Raiga discreetly sank a toe into the muddy bank beneath us. "Walking corpse, leave us be."

I tensed momentarily, but remembered that not only was Raiga more powerful than I, this was his battle, and interfering would discredit him. I relaxed.

"Yah think yah can just ignore me just because you're a swordsman's kept brat? What, trying to impress a imp too? I'm telling yah, I'll kill you and earn that place you got."

A sudden wave of twisted corruptedwrongconsumingdarkness erupted from my side. "I do not want to be a Swordsman's apprentice." Raiga got up and turned to face whoever it was behind us. I didn't move, so as to conceal my features and far-too-recognizable silver-on-black eyes. He channeled a pulse of Raiton chakra from his toe into the wet ground, "But I will stand my ground, Waiting-to-Die."

And there was a swiftly cut off scream—paralyzed by the lightning, perhaps? I popped some broccoli from Raiga's bento into my mouth. "Last roll, Raiga-kun. Do you want it?"

Raiga accepted, and sat down just as a teacher came, attracted by the stopped screams. We looked perfectly innocent as we talked about food.

Still, better safe than sorry. I jumped up, splattering mud all over Raiga's feet to disguise his stained toe. "Hello, Rika-sensei!"

"Kirisara!" Rika-sensei smiled warmly, "Why are you here?"

"Lunch." I answered, "And Raiga-kun's a friend. We're going over his part."

I was the daughter of the Mizukage. Though I was subordinate to the rule of law, the boy's political clout would mean nothing as I would always be favored in schoolyard mediations. Rika-sensei was no exception. "Good luck then! I love your cloud scene—it captures the sense of dreaming perfectly!"

"Thank you, sensei!" I bowed.

Rika-sensei laughed her tinkling laugh. "Work hard and do us all proud then!"

She pulled the boy upright by his collar and left without saying anything.

Raiga-kun seemed surprised by my intervention, which was sad.

I looked at the remains of his plain rice and boiled meat and vegetables, and came to an executive decision. "Yagura-san is making your bento from now on. You're starving your soul, and as the genjutsu expert here, I'm saying that's unhealthy and prescribing you medicine."

"The Apprentice can't contest the master." Raiga said bitterly, "And I'm under the Swordsmen's care on his orders."

I smiled as an idea struck me, "You can pass my apprenticeship on to Ameyuri-chan though! Then you will be her successor, and subordinate to her instead."

It was technically feasible, and killing two birds with one stone was better luck than I had hoped. If this was karma for my terrible couple of months, I was thankful for it.

 **Thank you, KM, for your wonderful review! I hope I don't disappoint. So, what do you all think of this chapter? Problems, typos, lost italics? Plot, characterization, more/less screentime? Let me know in the review, or just send a "3"!**


	10. Might and Right

_Kirigakure held fidelity, the rule of law, and equality sacred._

 _Chigiri held power, will, and devotion in high esteem._

 _Shinkiri, the New Mist, is in its infancy. What will it take of the past, and what will it change?_

- _Questions and Answers, Meditations of the Coterie_

* * *

 _If the only voice heard is the strongest, then let those who think themselves mighty have a taste of their own medicine._

 _-Heir_

* * *

"The situation with Mari is to be resolved before foreigners enter the village." Finished the Sandaime to my brother. I was unsure as to whether or not my presence was welcome, but ever since the Cormorant incident yesterday, my father had refused to give me orders, and only presented information that strongly advised certain courses of action. It was always my choice to acknowledge or to deny. I saw no reason to be cooperative to my detriment.

Passive-aggressive defiance was surprisingly heartening.

"Dismissed, _apprentices_."

He emphasized the plural. A lifetime, however short, was enough a length of training, so I kept a lid on my surprise, stepped around the desk to join my brother, and together with him, dipped into identical shallow bows.

Mari curled deeper into herself under the lashes of the whip. At least the thumbscrews hadn't been broken out yet. Whipping was terrifying, not only because of the pain, but because it could permanently cripple. But even that was better than damaged hands. Damaged hands took away jutsu.

* * *

"Confess!" Snarled her torturer. Sloppy, Mari noted woozily, raw anger was less intimidating than the cold, refined sort that characterized proper Jounin, "We all know you're a fucking traitor, and a fucking wimp to boot. There's no way you did that without an accomplice. It was your fucking bastard spawn, wasn't it? Fucking confess and stop wasting my time!"

She was unimportant. That was why this could happen. Competent interrogators were only used when the intent was to extract information, not a confession to simply tie things up. That was why a prisoner's dilemma had been offered so ham-handedly.

"My daughter has nothing to do with this." She wheezed out. Her ribs were cracked, clearly, and the wisest course of action would be to avoid antagonizing the brute of a woman that had her at her mercy, but defiance, even in things as slight as words, shored up her waning will, "And you can't make me lie to her detriment. I am a _mother_. Nothing you can do will change that."

The blow tore her tattered clothing into finer rags, but Mari continued, "No pain you could visit upon me could ever match the unending agony I suffered to bring my daughter into the world, and no bribe you could offer could ever compare to the sweetness of seeing my babe grow strong and free."

"And she shall do so, madam." The comically grave child's voice froze the whip-wielder in her tracks. Steady hands supported her into a sitting position, something inexplicable dulling the pain. There were two children, Karatachi Yagura, Apprentice of the Mizukage, and Kirisara, the Mizukage's daughter. Ah, of course, if it was Kirisara-hime, then she was using genjutsu—genjutsu that blocked pain when most genjutsu would be dispelled by it, skill beyond what a mere genin like her could muster, as expected of the Mizukage's daughter. It was the girl who was tending to her. The boy remained at the door of the cell.

"Pathetic." Said the heir to the village, and a trio of handseals brought forth a mild wave of water. Kirisara-hime gently lifted away her tattered shift, and brought the clean water down in a rain of droplets, washing away blood and muck. Producing clean white bandages, the Mizukage's daughter dressed her wounds. At the door, the Apprentice was still castigating the woman for incompetence.

"Yagura-san." Kirisara-hime spoke for the first time. "Mari-san is too wounded to move under her own power."

Yagura-sama broke off his tirade against the torturer's teachers, literacy, and mental functionality to nod briefly. _Mari had been addressed with the same suffix as Yagura- sama_. "I see. Woman. Carry Mari to the courtroom. Understand that any pain she suffers from this point on shall be repaid hundredfold upon you."

Why was the Heir to the Village interceding on her behalf? Mari felt as if she were in a dream. She was just a Genin. A replaceable tool. She had done nothing worth the Apprentice's own presence, this was something out of a fantasy. And Kirisara-hime was draping _her own cloak_ upon Mari's shoulders in response to Mari's shiver. The shiver was—directed Killing Intent. Yagura-sama, despite his young age, was capable of directed Killing Intent—as expected of the Apprentice. The Apprentice was making clear his intent to follow through with the promise.

Pale-faced, the torturer stepped around Kirisara-hime and gingerly lifted Mari up. Yagura-sama turned on his heel and walked out without glancing back, confident that he would be obeyed. They followed, and Kirisara-hime brought up the rear.

She was set down in the defendant's chair. Yagura-sama was flanked now by a red-haired girl, and another with blond hair identical to his. Slightly removed stood an older girl, with choppy brilliant crimson hair and dressed in an almost-impractical dress, made practical only by the skill with which she wore it. Then Mari saw their faces, and recognized them as the Terumi spare, the Apprentice's sister, and her Ameyuri, with an unfamiliar sword at her hip and hair tied in a strange, almost vulpine style. Uzushio? Surely not, but Ameyuri did stay away from home even before all that. And if she had made the acquaintance of the Apprentice, surely… surely… Kinslayer Crimson, wild and deadly, hero and demon, swordswoman sealsmistress. If the Apprentice had seen value in Ameyuri, then it would have been a matter of mere sentences to introduce Ameyuri to his mother, blood of Uzushio fallen.

Dread and joy washed over her in equal measure. What had her brilliant, determined daughter done? To the left of the Apprentice stood his sister, to his right Ameyuri. Half a step to the right and one behind, the scion of Kiri watched unobtrusively. The formation called to mind snatches of song, _Swordsman and Jounin at right and left, a shade of a shadow a step behind, a tripod of three then as equals met_ _…_ there had been rumors about the Apprentice forming his Coterie, but to think Ameyuri had joined his inner circle… it at least explained why the Apprentice was willing to give attention to her plight.

The trial was a sham, with the Apprentice present. Even as a year-old Genin with no great deeds to his name, the threat of future retribution was enough to stay anyone who cared interfere, and even if there were those who took offense at the Third-Caste origins of the Apprentice, Kirisara's presence implied the Mizukage's endorsement, and none would dare defy the Mizukage.

Unfortunately for everyone who had to be present, the fact that a trial was a farce was absolutely irrelevant to its length, unless one counted the potential _increase_ of time wasted due to the judge choosing the longest, most ridiculous set of proceedings possible and rambling at a speed achieved only by particularly elderly turtles and the certain types of mold. Yagura was quite annoyed. Somewhat furious at the stolen time, but if that was the price he had to pay for Ameyuri, then pay it he would, and pay it without regret. It was merely the reality that he was the only one pretending to pay attention that irritated him so greatly. Ginkanmuri shifted in silent question.

He allowed himself the slightest of grimaces. Officials who tried to protest in their own small ways had value. They would need to see if the absolute tortoise was stalling on purpose and if so, make note of his name for when they needed to promote someone. His sister acknowledged him with a unsubtle nod.

Oh. Of course.

He had created a Henged Shadow Clone to replace Mari, of course, and naturally, that led to the Yuki Guard creating a Shadow Clone as a replacement and then crouching down to tend to Ameyuri's mother. Ameyuri had used an Academy bunshin.

But Ginkanmuri (the real one) had caught everyone else in a genjutsu of there being nothing wrong, hiding everything behind him with the appearance of normalcy, then ducked down to join the two kunoichi on the ground, making their efforts at subterfuge unnecessary.

Mei, being an absolute opportunist, took advantage of the illusion's presence to ignore what was going on in front of them, even though, as she so declared, she was not part of his coterie, and therefore not represented by him.

On the bright side, she was making conversation, so he was saved from boredom alongside her.

* * *

"Well, this is turning out well." Mei murmured, low enough to be inaudible under the drone of the judge, "I can say, baby oar, that it's smooth enough to make me jealous."

"A piercing observation, and a unique opinion." He replied, "Truly worthy of utterance by Mei of the Terumi."

"You would find life easier if you didn't antagonize people." She said dryly.

"They would also find life easier if I was not bothered." He shot back, "Why did you grace me with your presence at this trial?"

"One, because my clan will believe that we're working together, which is a point for me, given that snagging your attention is a good thing, technically. Two, because I am actually concerned with Ameyuri, though given that it isn't a bunshin I'm talking to, you probably are too. And three, is this any way to talk to someone who's here to help?"

He shrugged.

"Fine." Mei huffed, "I like your boots. Where'd you get them?"

"Family supplier. So not available to you." He raised an eyebrow, "Unless you're planning on changing your banner."

She snorted, "Definitely not. Unlike you, I'll live without the boots for a while yet."

"Lucky." He tested, "It would take at least a week for a new order, anyway."

"And by that time, I won't need them." Mei confirmed.

There weren't many training grounds with sand. Only one was large enough and secluded enough for the Exams. "You have my respect for your vanity." He insulted. _You have my respect for managing to find that out._

"Why, thank you, Oar-tan." Mei mock-cooed. _Thanks for the compliment_ , "Shouldn't you help your Mei-nee-san with it then?" _I expect payment._

"If it was not for your coloring, I'd take you for a magpie." He snapped back. _Expect something shiny._

"The Genin Mari is cleared of all charges!"

Finally.

The illusion held just long enough for the clones' bait-and-switch to be unnoticed.

* * *

Using the silent-communication genjutsu that had been drilled into him despite his lack of liking for the art, he asked, " _Guard. I defer to your expertise in this matter. How can Mari-san be transported without aggravating her injuries?_ "

The false Ginkanmuri answered in the same manner, but she was far more practiced, " _A modification of the Water Prison Jutsu may suffice. The particular sequence of seals_ _…_ " their communication turned non-verbal as a memory of hands shaping seals and chakra being channeled was sent through the connection.

Then. He noted the apprehension of the Guard. A promise had been made, and he would be held to it. Every eye in Kiri watched him for hesitance. Watched him for doubt. Watched him for weakness. Watched him for any excuse to call him unworthy. Least of all these in this room.

 _Brother. Shall I?_

Even with his constant awareness of his own chakra network, he had not realized that his sister had caught him in an illusion. Under the Sandaime, Ginkanmuri's natural gifts had been honed into the talent of legends, and while that was something to celebrate, as a price, Mino's daughter had lost much of her fire, its cooling cinders now darkening her spirit into calm, deathly focus.

Mei tossed him a lazy salute. "Til next time, Oar-chan!"

The Apprentice replied to neither. _Snake_ _Ram_ _→ Horse replaced by dragon_ _→ Hare_ _→ Ram_ __ _…_ _Ox, Clap._

Enveloped in a cocoon of water, Mari was lifted with infinite gentleness, pain shielded from her mind by Kirisara's mercy. Ameyuri and Ginkanmuri walked out first. The ball floated behind them, hooked on his staff. Kirisara was still. Waiting.

He passed the tense Chuunin, walking just far enough for her to begin to relax. Then. "Kirisara." He said, in a tone that was far more casual than his coterie's first order deserved, "See to it."

His sister nodded gracefully. "By your will, Yagura- _sama_."

Her hands folded seals.

Rat _, for darkness. Yin. Gnawing persistence._

Rabbit _, for the moon_ _'s madness. Reflection. Dreams._

A scream, as the woman fell.

Serpent, _for poison. Constriction. Pain._

Silence.

* * *

"Kirisara! Ginkanmuri!"

Aiko. She was panting—no spare chakra to burn, meaning that she had spent it running over water all the way from the Academy.

I stepped forward as the Guard stepped back into my shadow in tacit acknowledgement of my authority—a change, from when I was Kirisara-chan and not Kirisara. "What is it, Aiko-san?"

She blinked, "You don't remember? _Dress rehearsal!_ "

Oh, yes. Genjutsu club matters. The past four days had all but put my officially assigned task out of my mind. On the bright side, I hadn't missed much school.

"You say 'dress rehearsal'." I observed, "Yet as we are not actors, surely we do not need to don costumes as well."

Aiko half-laughed, "You're going to be surprised, Kirisara. We're going to wear 'ninja' clothes."

The air quotes (one of my accidental introductions to this world) told me something was wrong.

I was right.

We were wearing black, skintight, hooded pajamas. With a black scarf over our noses and mouths. They were, I was informed, the traditional clothing of the stagehands, and intended to signal that we were not part of the play, thus giving rise to the civilian impression that they were the apparel of shinobi, for such characters wore the same guise to melt out of the nowhere of the non-characters into the play.

It was presumably my father's idea of a joke.


	11. Painted Faces

_Only two of the Five Great Shinobi Villages have a longstanding tradition of stage drama. The first, Sunagakure, who put their war-puppets to gentler purpose, both to train their children and to make their weapons seem innocuous. The second, Kirigakure, whose eerier meshes of acting and genjutsu serve a similar purpose of training children for war, while simultaneously being far more insidious, using the attraction of entertainment to facilitate the spread of ideas and information._

 _-Introduction to the Five Great Shinobi Nations_

* * *

Mino's hands were steady as she repainted the mark on her cheek. Karatachi, once grown, marked their faces with what they would have the world know of their essence at first glance. Once, she had worn a sprig of primroses needled upon her cheek, crying of the desperation that drove her, but also a defiance of sorts, for if her face was so made unique, she would be unsuited for the shifting faces of a kunoichi's trade. No longer. For Kiri had taken her children, and they would take Kiri. To Karatachi and Kiri she had sworn her life. For her children and the future, she would give everything. Besides, she was Titled now. Crimson Kinslayer, whispers trailing after her in the streets, eyes following her behind her back, loved and feared and watched. They would accuse her if betrayal. So? Her hair had darkened, after she birthed her children. Shades more, each time. Vintage sanguine now, it was. Old blood. Dried blood. Kinslayer she was, and if they would not let her forget it, then neither would they not have the luxury of forgetting.

An owl's face at the center, that most unfilial of birds, which ate its parents when grown, turning against its own blood. Spiraling into it, the Whirlpool reversed. Reversed until it was the order of the universe, of course. The irony that it was half of Konoha's mark was not lost on Mino of the Karatachi. Uzumaki rebelled and defied. Konoha's lot complied. No wonder they had let her kill her father's kin and just mourned afterwards. So much simpler. After all, living allies were so inconvenient. It was far easier to rally in the name of dead ones. Yet they dared! Kiri called her Kinslayer, and it was no insult, for behind those syllables was the acknowledgement that she had held loyalty to her village higher than loyalty to her blood, honored oath and honored choice. Of course, Mizukage-sama had his hand in making that so, when he spoke at her wedding and gave Minazuki away, Kiri giving kin to her, when kin had been lost for Kiri's sake. Konoha would soon look upon her and spit the word, as if killing was so much worse when one spilled blood not unlike that in one's veins, as if they were not as much at fault for inaction. When they let Uzushio die, and mourned and were not ashamed, added a neat spiral to their jackets and forgot the virtue of that name!

Chigiri was bloody, yet it did not forget. Chigiri honored its enemies, immortalized them in myth and legend. No child forgot the terror of Mito, who changed the world with Biju, nor failed to have lain salt-crystal offerings before the monument to Susumu, who had set down the seals which gave their lands sweet water. Chigiri feared its enemy and did not flinch at the depths it had sunk to in its pursuit of destruction, yet it still remembered its debts. Konoha forgot its allies, sought to erase its shame, did not do its blood-kin the courtesy even its enemies had the decency of doing; they would look at her askance and condemn her in below their breaths, even when they were the ones who should be more strongly condemned.

"Love." Minazuki said gently, taking the clenched-tight brush from her hands, "Do not stifle your fire when you need not. Rage at me, if you wish to."

She moved away. Out of the room and the delicate and breakable things.

"Is this about Gin-chan?" Her husband asked, deliberately obtuse, "I understand, love, that you consider the Gin-chan situation Ginkanmuri being replaced, but it isn't! Gin-chan isn't a cuckoo, and I think you know that, 'cus you've decided to adopt a duckling too, and she isn't a replacement eith—"

With a snarl, she attacked (as was his intent). Blows flew as she spent her blood-rage, and he matched her as her equal. Grief unspoken and behind duty bound. They fought mindlessly, simply to fight, not to win, unthinking, unplanning, lost in an endless moment. Her sight blurred, though whether it was from tears or Minazuki's genjutsu she could not tell; his form lost cohesion, though whether that was to escape heart-pain or flesh-pain, he could not say.

They tangled. Hand-to-hand. Leg to leg. Grief to rage to hate to love. And in the end, she pinned him beneath her, both panting and damp from exertion.

In the distance, a series of horns sounded.

* * *

Three outfits were on my bed. The first a boy's brocade kimono, patterned in clams and pearls and Hōzuki. The second a girl's battle-dress, little different from Mei's, wax-dyed rich purple with a lotus rising from water formed by the white where dye had not reached. The last was a set of fully formal robes, styled for a prince, tailored to my stature, made from a base of lavender-grey silk, with a dragon snarling at my left breast and its foreclaws upon my shoulders, picked out in imperial yellow silk and gold thread, with a ruff of pale silver and claws and whiskers of red, twin horns embroidered in the brown flight feathers of gulls' wings. Crimson waves roiled at the hems, outlined in burnished silver. In between, rising from the muck and chaos, was a single, immaculate white lotus. Folded besides it was a belt in rich purple, as well as a tie of strung black pearls.

"The first," said the exiled prince, "is merely a declaration of your position as my heir in such a way as my _family_ will be capable of interpreting, and a hearkening back to Gengetsu that honors the Bloodlines. The second is more a reminder of Kirigakure and its founder, and our martial nature. The third is more threat than its fellows, for it is a mural to Byakuren's humbling of the Imperial Houses and a declaration of your claim to the throne."

"A paltry claim." I argued mildly, "When my name is not writ in the genealogies, and I am not of direct descent."

"Yet the one who sits on the throne is no son of his father." The exiled prince said, amused, "His predecessor spent too much time seeking to make a union of crane and man bear fruit while his brothers fought themselves and sought to dispose him. The dowager had her son begat by another, and ruled well from behind the curtain until such time as he was of age."

He frowned, "Quite frankly, I hoped that she would have ruled longer, but alas, she would not become monarch in name as well as truth. Yet there exists a memory of the good lady, even now with her unworthy son at the helm, thus the people would welcome another woman to rule them for love of her, and for that my great-nephew would fear you. Come now, and choose. There is little time until the Daimyo arrives, and we must both be arrayed to meet him."

I did not take those rich robes, because I actually wanted to have a half-decent relationship with my future co-rulers, not antagonize them at our first meeting. Nor would I claim my grandfather's sign, since I would not promise to advocate for bloodlines when I was myself uncertain. So, the battle-dress it was, and let Mei tease me for it.

However, Hōzuki were apparently a political statement, so I wore the small red lantern fruit hanging from hair ornaments of bone, as well as salt crystals, pearls, and sea-glass. They were all things that costed little but time, which, I sensed, was the point.

On the other hand, when I met my brother, he was wearing exactly the same outfit he wore daily, albeit clean and freshly laundered with no patches. I felt annoyingly overdressed even in what was also (technically) military wear. The Sandaime also did not choose to change his attire, though he did bind his hair up with jade carved as a dragon and a hairpin ending in a white lotus. One would have thought that there were already enough references to Byakuren-sama, but there was no upper limit when it came to homage to our founder, apparently.

* * *

I felt much better when I finally saw my adoptive nth cousins nth removed. For all that I wore an unreasonable number of accessories for a shinobi, at least my father had, as much as I was loathe to admit it, _taste_. Compared to the riot of polished gold and gleaming jewels, what I bore excluded austere elegance. And given how faces pointedly did not twist about us, it seemed that Kiri's people were of the same mind as me.

Then the Sandaime stepped forward to welcome their retinue from the ship.

"This is the first time I have been thankful for our lack of sun." My brother muttered from beside me.

"I agree, but do you mean that you haven't noticed the jingle?" I muttered back, "I'm beginning to suspect that they're trying to repel us with the noise."

"It would make sense, what with how the ringing of bells should exorcise youkai." He snorted.

"Yet another thing to blame our illustrious leader for then; on the other hand, I quite like the idea."

"You like impersonating creatures of myth and legend?"

"As if you don't like terrifying aristocrats." I shot back in an undertone, "It would cut down on the empty nest syndrome attacks as well, which I imagine is a far more salient issue, especially at this moment." I nodded towards the middle-aged woman dripping precious metal and smiling maternally at my brother.

He shuddered subtly. "There's a reason why I micromanaged the seating arrangements."

Those were for the feast, because my father had retained some of the customs and rituals of his civilian origins, and they were on full display there. I managed to muddle through by dint of not being expected to provide intelligent conversation and making any failure to comply to customs appear deliberate instead of a failing of ability.

Then I was dismissed along with the boy who was the crown prince.

* * *

He was…loud.

"Come on! Kirisara-chan, you can do magic too, right? Can you show me? It's so unfair that you get to be a Water-Walker while I have to learn lots of boooooring Classics! I want to see what you do!"

I bowed neatly at the boy a few years my elder, then held out a hand as I stepped onto the water of the Kage no Sono's pond. "Come then, Masao-dono."

He gasped, "But—Kirisara-chan, surely you did not take from me my mortal flesh, and give me the bones of immortals!"

"It is not within my power to kindle such power within you as well." I confirmed, "Yet I have enough to sustain you briefly within my world."

For to the peoples of Water, there was no greater distinction for the shinobi and mundane people than our ability to walk on water. Though there were greater arts, this was the one constant of us who harnessed the elements with will and gesture. So, Water-Walkers we were named, when it was feared to speak of us directly. I spread chakra beneath his feet, coaxed surface tension to increase and support his weight, and smiled with no little innocent pride at his childish wonder.

He took a few steps, holding onto my arm, wobbling, unsure, then crouched down to touched the water that remained water, even when it did not let him sink. We lingered for a few moments. Suddenly, he jumped up and cried, "You said 'sustain briefly', Kirisara-chan! Yet we have tarried here, perhaps overlong; I would not wish to tax you, so let us return to shore!"

Grasping my hand, he drew us both back to the bank in swift steps, which, ironically enough, were harder for me to compensate for than if he had moved more slowly. "Fear not." I assured him, "I am not that delicate." I grinned, "And I may show you some other things as well! But I demand payment, for I have not so great a means as you, and you have no right to command my powers so."

"But we are kin, Kirisara of the Mist, and I am guest of thine!" Protested my cousin, "Surely that allots this prince some luxury, and a few small gifts!"

"Be constant in your words." I chided mildly, "You just said that you would not wish to tax me overmuch, and by that you claimed that my gifts were not small. Do not be so changeable as to call them meager, simply when your own wishes change."

Masao nodded, "You speak truly, cousin! Verily you are a better teacher of statecraft than the hidebound old fogies who are my teachers. Very well! Name your price!"

I actually had something in mind, so I pointed at the seed pods close to the bank. "For such, I demand lotus-fruit!"

Which made me a hypocrite regarding the whole Byakuren-reference issue, but it was that or Hōzuki berries or green plums, and I didn't want to give suspiciously incestuous signals.

Masao clapped his hands, "Then I shall fetch them swiftly, o Kirisara of the lotuses!"

What. And then I realized. The dress.

Taking his offering, I split the spongy seed pod in half, and halved one of them again to share with him, pulling out the seeds and peeling away the flexible seed-shells and dropping them in the water to rot along with other mulch.

Then I took the last seed of my quarter, and tossed it into the water, using the motion to catch him in a genjutsu.

The delicate tip of curled lotus leaf poked out of the water, and a beautiful red dragonfly alit on it, before the swiftness of the plant's growth forced the dragonfly to fly away, only to perch on Masao's nose. He laughed in delight, carefully transferring the dragonfly onto his finger, and marveling at its delicate gem-like beauty. More leaves sprouted, a veritable throng; tender green darkened as the leaves became tough. And then, flower buds rose, slender and shapely, blooming white and lavender and blue and pink and red. The dragonfly flew away and landed on that most perfect pink bloom (because white and lavender were political symbols and I couldn't give the fruit of Kiri to a _prince_ ).

Masao cried out as petals dropped from the flowers, but I smiled as the seed pod at the heart of that bloom swelled and bent towards me, finally 'plucking' it from its stem and splitting it in half once again. Then I gave the boy the remaining half of the seedpod he had given me, sparing a bit of effort to turn his attention away from how the tissue had turned a bit brown from oxidation.

His eyes widened as he realized that what he held in his hands was in fact, real. I tricked his tastebuds to register sweetness and his olfactory receptors to register lotus fragrance when he tasted the seeds. "Kirisara!" He exclaimed, taking my hands in his own, "Truly you are no land-plodding woman, rather some form of spirit or saint, to conjure from seed a bounty of fruit! Yet woe to me that our acquaintance is so short, and I must soon return to my world of red dust, where my company is composed of doddering foozles, fighting brothers and giggling girls. Never shall I meet another so—"

"What are you doing?!"

And apparently the Daimyo's wife had come to find us.

Dragging both of us by the ear (given the absence of ANBU interference, I presumed that my father had anticipated this), she stormed back to the Mizukage tower, where councils of state were being held.

* * *

"Your little harlot just attempted to seduce my son!" Lady Haruka snarled at my father, throwing me forward in an attempt to cast me into the dust. Unfortunately for her, I was the combat-trained person of the trio, so I regained my balance with pointedly contemptuous ease and did obeisance to the Mizukage before stepping aside to give him a direct line of sight to the woman.

* * *

 _Finally, something to break up this monotony_. My brother greeted me through genjutsu with his typical acerbity.

 _How terrible can it be?_

 _Beyond description. I think it's a manipulation tactic. Everyone else is both horrible and without class. I'm reduced to rooting for our beloved overlord simply because he is more pleasant in comparison. At least his insults are amusing._

Case in point: the Sandaime was even now mocking our guests with false gentleness, "The refinement of the imperial house has fallen of late-how swiftly has it crumbled into ignominy and barbarity! Of course, that you level such accusations at a maid of four winters speaks of your own depravity, does it not? Worry not, my daughter will never stoup so low as to court your son's favor, for what bird would perch in a gilded cage when she could fly free and dive deep?"

 _Poor you then. Masao is surprisingly agreeable for a prince, but far too disposed to poetry. I think he takes after his grand-uncle more than anyone wants to think about_

 _Yep. And he still won't let a chance to drive home the crimes of the Imperial House against his mother go._

 _To be fair, coercing consent is not at all acceptable. At least he recognizes that._

 _Now, if only he can apply that understanding to other forms of coercion, not just that of marriage and union._

 _To be fair, I think that he's quite aware of the immorality of his actions. He's just particularly ruthless whenever he thinks it is necessary for Kiri, and only thinks it terrible when the motive is only personal gain._

 _Is that Prisoner's Attachment I'm hearing, sister? The terrifying thing is, we're almost the same._

 _We wouldn't rape anyone, no matter the circumstance or how prettily it is put, would we though, nii-san?_

 _We definitely would not. Why would there ever be something that could only be solved by that?_

 _Depends on the definition. If you count the mental violation as a form of violation, then…_

 _Torture genjutsu don't count. Not on_ _that_ _woman._

 _In other words, it depends on the victim?_

 _No. Can we talk about this later? I really don't want to debate morality while listening to territory reconfirmations and defense contract redrawing and supply agreements._

 _I thought you were bored._

 _Aargh!_

* * *

More people trickled in from the docks the following days, or so I was told. I was too busy checking and rechecking last minute changes to the _Tragedy of the Nidaimes_ and talking actors down from stage fright.

"Wonderful." Ginkanmuri said, narrowed eyes scanning the shadows, "Suna has arrived."

She—I was certain she was a she—was the Yu Guard then, if she could see in such low light. They were in some ways akin to the Nara, for their bloodline was linked with shadow too. Named for the mythical worm that spat sand upon shadows to poison its victims, they could sink into shadows or harm without touching flesh. Dangerous enough and capable enough for their greatest to number among the Guard.

And if I squinted, I could make out the odd-angled shapes of puppets and the dark hooded clothes of puppeteers, see perhaps a Genin's face reflecting a glimmer of light. My sight could not pierce the mist that lurked even inside, clustering in the corners and climbing upon the roofs.

"Will they cause disturbance?"

"Unlikely. They respect theater. They also hold their own opinions of it. They will not heckle. But they will judge."

"Then we have no recourse but to make a good showing."

"Yes. I will intercede if circumstances spiral beyond control."

Positions.

Aiko sat just behind the curtains with the script in her lap—she was the prompter. I had a similar book in hand, but I was hidden behind mist and shadow high in the rafters, where I could see everyone and could most easily coordinate things, and that made it rather more difficult to make things out.

Shiro was hiding behind the market stall for the first scene's set. Kasumi underneath the stage. Two more, orphaned siblings, Haruto and Hiroto, who Kasumi had invited to live with him after they made each other's acquaintance in the genjutsu club, masqueraded as background characters and wearing easily changed clothes. Ginkanmuri joined Yagura, front and center. It was the Sandaime's bit of psychological warfare, to have Genegetsu's children narrate his tragedy.

All lights dimmed. There was a hush.

Ginkanmuri began,

 _Fair flowers may blossom bright once again,_

 _Yet without return is the youth of men._

 _See now, the great tragedy occurring then,_

 _How accursed conflict brings down great legends._

Yagura continued,

 _This epic tale begins with the Founding,_

 _The bloody birth of our villages._

Ginkanmuri bowed and faded out of sight with the perfected invisibility of Mu's signature technique, the Dustless Bewildering Cover as Yagura chanted on. None from Iwa could fail to recognize its significance, but the Sandaime had chosen to reveal the technique on the stage, while Kiri's pride was in its illusions, casting doubt on its authenticity, while still leaving enough room for doubt and thus paranoia. He was weakening Iwa yet in vengeance for the loss of his predecessors.

I settled a net of awareness onto my comrades, even the Guard. Music swelled at Kasumi's direction.

The play began.

* * *

 **For those of you who found this story from _With all due respect sir, meaning none_ , yes, Ginkanmuri/Kirisara/Basil has distressing amounts of experience coping with princes and hyperactive oblivious people.**

 **Mino's relationship with her part in Uzushio's Fall and her Uzumaki heritage is complicated.  
Masao is a prince. He is polite, but he never says please. He doesn't think before acting because he is expects that he will be obeyed anyways, hence dragging Kirisara around and excessive bodily contact. He's also a kid who's fascinated with magic/jutsu, hates history and politics, loves poetry/prose, and as of now, thinks the world of his fairy cousin. He's going to have character development.  
Speaking of which, Mizu people consider Kirigakure the equivalent of a faerie court, with all the superstitions involved. Kirisara is not helping. I'm beginning to feel as if they're developing along the lines of Morgan le Fay to Arthur. Just less tragedy and incest.  
There was a Duke, 卫懿公, who did fixate on cranes to the detriment of his dukedom. The Sandaime probably took inspiration from that and uh. Encouraged deplorable tendencies.  
On the bright side, competent dowagers 垂帘听政（hanging a curtain and listening upon the government AKA being regent) instead of the ridiculous women in positions of power will just drive the country to ruin because it goes against the natural order of things BS.  
Green plums: 青梅竹马, the green plums and bamboo horse. Refers to romantic love beginning from childhood. The girl wishes for green plums. The boy uses his toy horse (horse head on bamboo stick) to knock some down for her. Part of a poem, from Li Bai's《长干行》.  
Strangely enough, there actually is an immortal associated with lotuses among the Eight Immortals: He Xiangu, literally Immortal Aunt He.  
Red Dust: 红尘，or dust of lanes, refers to the bustling life of mundanity, the mundane world, etc. Masao is serious in his Kiri=Faerie thing.  
Prisoner's Attachment: Stockholm Syndrome, but the lack of Stockholm means I need to think up a different name for it.  
 _Fair flowers may blossom bright once again,_  
 _Yet without return is the youth of men._  
My hopefully poetic translation of the saying 花有重开日，人无再少年. Pretty much means that compared to riches and nobility, living well and stably is more valuable, because you only have one life. The Sandaime keeps lamenting about the senseless loss of life as psychological warfare. Hypocrite.**


	12. Alliances (women)

_The beginnings of alliances may be found in the smallest of actions. Yet to initiate any alliance, one must first meet with the intended ally. Thus, the Chunin exams can be said to be the moment when the Coterie became part of the world at large, although it would take time for it to grow in its own._

 _-The Last Watch: An Account of the Last Decade of Chigiri and the Formative Years of the Coterie_

* * *

Ginkanmuri was waiting for us backstage after she and Yagura had delivered the closing lines. "Thank you everyone." She said, "It was a good play, even if certain individuals who shall go unnamed nearly brought us to ruin." She looked pointedly towards where an actor was nursing a skinned knee. "We have new marching orders." She smiled as she brandished a scroll, "Mizukage-sama wants us at the Academy right now. It's—" she paused and lowered her voice conspiratorially, " _top secret_!"

There was an element of tiredness to this Ginkanmuri's demeanor, as if she was still in the play and merely acting by route. There had been a switch—this Guard was acting as a messenger. We followed her down into the basement, where—"Raiga-san?" I whispered in greeting as we passed the shadow where he hid.

"Kirisara-chan." He fell into step beside me, expression unhappy, " _He_ wants you somewhere else."

I let him hold me back while the Guard opened a passage into the sewers.

"What is the situation?"

"The Daimyo's wife summoned you for an audience."

"I am fairly certain that she may not—our independence was dearly bought." We turned back upstairs, a bit of mist thickened by Raiga hiding our presence once we emerged into the open air.

"True!" Raiga giggled, then bopped me on the nose, "But we are tricksy tricksters, Kirisara-chan!"

"Water gives resistance only when it is pressed." I said, "And so we allow them comforting assumptions?"

"Just so!"

"Father doesn't fail to emphasize our independence though." I pointed out, rounding a corner.

Raiga gave a wheezing cackle, "That's the point, Kirisara-chan! They think they know that we won't bow, but they forget how far we can push back!"

"Over-confident but still cautious enough." I noted.

"Exactly!" He paused at the door of the inn. It was luxurious, in that tastefully understated way that showed its age. Curiously enough, though Raiga and I were in the middle of the most prosperous part of the city, I had noticed little traffic. And even as I realized that, the world turned loud and bustling again outside the alley where we stood.

"Can you hold a Henge for an hour?" Raiga asked me.

"Easily." I was Mino's daughter, and though the Karatachi smothered all Bloodlines, I still inherited larger-than-average reserves.

"Here, henge into this." And Raiga henged into me, but with my hair up in two buns like a servant or a child, with lotus hairpins, and a kimono patterned in small clamshells.

I mirrored him with a small effort of will, my stagehand blacks gone with an application of chakra to show the same luxurious drape of silk.

"You have practice." He complimented.

"Don't we all? It's a well-beloved shortcut in school, Raiga-san." I brushed a hand over the buns, checking that they were secure.

"Yes!" He grinned, "I've forced people to henge into shuriken and get buried in boxes! Make sure you don't have a genjutsu on you when you henge!"

That was useful to know. Also, I was fairly sure that the average academy student didn't get into such escalated situations. Only one answer, "Thank you!"

He grinned back, bright and open, "Good luck then, Kirisara-chan. See you later!"

I bade him goodbye and then headed in.

* * *

 **All that is gold does not glitter**

* * *

"Rasa of the Golden Sand." Yagura bowed.

"Karatachi Yagura." The man bowed back neatly, "Your delivery was masterful-please accept my congratulations. I presume that you will be taking part as a contestant in these exams?"

"Yes, and thank you. I intend to achieve Chunin through peacetime means, even if I will become Jounin upon the field."

"A wise choice, and a confident declaration." His counterpart from Sand agreed, "Some would claim that your participation would be cheating."

The Genin gestured to the mingling shinobi, Genin close on the heels of their sensei, Jounin finding old rivals and sometime acquaintances to tease out information in the guise of "catching up".

"How so? I am young and little more capable than my peers, all I can hope is to make a good showing. It is our seniors who judge whether to give us a Chunin's Vest, as it was our teachers who decided whether we were worthy to bear the hitai-ate; the Exams are but a platform, a chance for us to display our capabilities—surely you are not suggesting that I am capable of fooling Jounin already?"

Rasa laughed, "I would venture to say that if you could, then you would be more than Chunin, Yagura-san!"

Yagura smiled politely at that, at loss for anything other response.

"But that is a sensitive subject to speak of." Rasa relented. There was the barest hint of something patronizing in his tone, but he did do Yagura the courtesy of stepping back. Implicit was debt. As he had learned even before the Sandaime taught him, he could refuse to recognize it, but that made future dealings difficult. Expectation of reciprocation made people willing to deal with one. "Shall we discuss Kirisara-chan's wardrobe choices at the pier instead?"

"If you are curious." Yagura allowed, "Mizukage-sama has always been very open with his opinions, and he has a fondness for symbolic fashion. Unfortunately, as a shinobi, he is not free with his apparel, but the discovery of his daughter has given him an outlet for those impulses."

"Oh?" Rasa queried lightly, "I myself observed the use of frosted glass. It is very fine—finer, I dare say, than even the work of the finest of Wind's glassblowers."

The Mizukage's apprentice inclined his head in acknowledgment, "Such glass is the work of more than man. It is not made by careful sculpting, but rather fragments shattered and cast into the sea, where time and salt and the work of the waves upon the shores transform them into ornaments of this particular sort. From the union of your craft and our places, surpassing beauty is made."

"And so as well would an alliance of our villages bear fruit." The Kazekage's lieutenant voiced what the Mizukage's heir had implied, "Indeed," He mused, "We are not without our similarities, and our resentment towards our liege lords."

"It is food for thought." Yagura agreed noncommittally. His sister had promised him the possibility of peace on a grand scale. Not now, perhaps, when the two future Yondaimes held little true power, but after the war, perhaps, this could be the groundwork for their world's remaking.

"In time perhaps." Rasa agreed with his thoughts, "Sadly, I must say goodbye. Your sensei appears to be calling for you."

He wasn't wrong.

Yagura missed the danger of the unallied shinobi's company moments after being summoned by the Sandaime to suffer the presence of quarter-grown royalty.

"Lord kinsman. My cousin Kirisara is a pleasant personage, and yet such opportunities for me to travel to her are rare. Would it be possible to arrange for my kinswoman to come to me?"

"You are attached to my daughter, young crown prince, yet her obligations are not to thee." The Exiled Prince looked down at his young grand-nephew from his height, "Why should I allow one of mine to waste her time keeping you company?"

Prince Masao rallied easily—or maybe he had planned for this, "I will not put a price on her time and attention, if that is what you mean. That would devalue her. Yet this I would say, should she allow me, I would treasure her in a room of gold." That disgusting boy did _not_! "Kirisara's" _cousin_ grinned up at the Sandaime with exaggerated innocence.

The Exiled Prince raised an eyebrow at that, "The one who hid his cousin in such a vault cast her away."

Wonderful. It had come around to incestuous innuendo.

The Crown Prince tilted his chin, "I know of what I speak, and yet I say it. But as you have said, my cousin is for the waters and the wild, and I doubt she would love me for sealing her behind doors, no matter how gilded her quarters." Then he drew himself up with a challenging glint in his eye, "I would welcome her and her counsel, and give her my trust."

The boy was offering the most precious currency of the court—influence. Though he was young, he was the future Daimyo. Because he was young, he was impressionable. He knew that, was willing to use that. And why was it that every second boy his sister made the acquaintance of was so desperately lonely as to latch onto her despite the consequences?

Yagura hid a grimace. The sad thing was, those boys were _useful_ , but why couldn't they be more like Kasumi, who, despite being unable to read tone or faces or social nuances, was without a doubt capable and emotionally healthy and talented in what he loved? The ten-year-old studiously ignored that he had also all but latched on to his sister as a confidante and co-conspirator.

* * *

 **Not all those who wander are lost**

* * *

"Won't you stay, Miko?"

"No, Abbess." The kunoichi replied, repacking her weapons and stringing her bow.

The old woman sighed, "You've healed and brought us healing, won't you let yourself to be healed too? The child who accompanied you stays with us, but there are wounds upon your soul too, no less deep than his."

"I have not suffered as he has suffered." The ROOT dissented softly, "I am not as hurt as he."

The abbess barked out an ugly laugh, "Girl, you may have seen much, but I have lived longer and seen more. Being better off doesn't meant you're good, and there's more than one type of hurt and more than one type of laird. You might've not had to spread your legs or claw about in a harem, but you've been in another's power and forced to give more than you're willing."

"Not more than I was willing."

"No?" The older woman raised an eyebrow, "The boy, he said yes to whatever happened to him too, didn't he? But you could tell that he wasn't willing. What's so different for you? Pah! Spies, you think you're all so tricky, but then you just start fooling yourselves, and there's no greater foolishness than that."

She could not dissuade the abbess—she had brought a former honeypot here for refuge and recovery among women who had once been caged in walled courtyards, and that was not something any priestess without a temple could do. She could only deflect, "How did you know I serve a lord?"

The abbess snorted, "Few miko wander without trading something more than the purported blessings and exorcisms. You're powerful, girl, powerful enough to actually do something about the oni and jami and misaki and the like, not just comfort and soothe with small magics and petty prayers. You even use more than herblore and handcraft in your healing, but there're only so many youkai and so many wounds. Flesh and information, those things buy passage far easier, and you just told me that you serve a laird who definitely wants the second, if not also the first."

"My failing then." Nono said tiredly, "But I am needed, I can't stop."

"That's stupid, that." The abbess spat into a spittoon, "Never can't. Won't. If you're set on going, girl, here's a piece of advice from an old woman. There's no god yanking at your chain. You can stop. It's easy. Just unstring your bow, unpack your bags, stay with the boy you saved. But you won't, because you care for more things than you and he, and that's why you think stopping is hard. That's not a bad thing, that, but if it starts weighing you down, remember, _won't_. Not can't. You can always stop. The nuns here, they learnt, didn't they? They thought they had to be those poisonous pretty peonies forever, play those politics for their sons or their fathers or their brothers, calling that patriotism, but not now. No knives hidden in smiles, no needles in the bedding. Come here if you won't stay no longer in the Sorrowful World. We can be your home."

"And with a home awaiting, though I wander, I can never be lost?" The spy asked with a smile.

"Just so." The abbess dropped a small drawstring bag, "Something for the road. Gods know you deserve it, what with all that you have given us. Next time you come, Chiyako and Michiko will be able to supply you with blessed arrows."

"They need not."

The abbess waved an annoyed hand, "Did I say anything about need? Some of us here couldn't feel safe again until we learnt how to defend ourselves. Others need to learn something untainted by past memories. You helped us with both. We want to thank you. Besides, we're still a temple. There's always a need for tools of exorcism—we aren't just making them for you."

Nono smiled again, opener now, "Then I will accept them gratefully."

Once the Abbess left, Nono opened the bag. Along with a handful of coins, there was also a piece of paper, folded into quarters. On it was written…

Kumo-nin had lodged here in their way to the Chunin Exams. Rope and sedatives had been noticed in their luggage—who were they planning to acquire?

She took out paper and pen. This needed to reach Danzo-sama immediately.

* * *

 **The old that is strong does not wither**

* * *

Onoki was old, but his memory was still unmarred by age. He remembered much. He had fought in both wars, been struck dumb by the glory of Uzushio in its prime, and borne witness to the terrors that were Konoha's Kage. He had witnessed the rampage of Bijuu, and commanded the men and women who bound them with ink and will. Mighty and many were the powers of the world, and most of them were awful as well. Just a few united in purpose would strike Iwa a raw wound, yet though they were dangerous, none were nearly as spine-chillingly so as the pearl-crowned prince.

Others may beat Iwa, shatter Stone, but though stone may be broken, its hardness could not be lost, no more than ochre could be deprived of its redness through grinding. But the man before him, called Kirihamaguri, had the ability to crumble Stone into dust from within and take from it its strength.

Iwa's nominal ally would be its bane. This he knew, with the same certainty he bore about the fact that he would not die a peaceful death. When the twin Nidaimes had died in mutual damnation, their successors had ascended in tandem. He was on guard for a retaliatory attack to prove the strength of a nation that had lost its head. It was not so. After a month of silence, the Fisherman had with a playwright's brush tarred their predecessors' deaths with the colors of romance and tragedy. He played two villages, the shinobi within, and even the Daimyos' courts with effortless ease, tuning tragic sympathies to force Onoki's hand, not towards war, but instead towards peace. In one foul swoop, the man had humiliated him, made a not-so-subtle threat that only a few could see, and yet brought about an outcome to the benefit of Mist and Stone alike, while simultaneously placing himself where he could backstab his opponent if needed.

It was masterful. Improbable in its methods, inhuman in its skill.

Onoki was old. He could feel it in his bones. They had all met as younger men when the embers of the Second War had yet to settle into cinders. His hair was white and growing sparse. Sarutobi's face, last he saw it, was liver-spotted, and no less aged were the shadows of Wind and Lightning, with their craggy countenances and wrinkled skin, living personifications of their harsh realms. Only Water's lord remained untouched by time, features smooth as a reflecting pool with no more than the hints of lines at the corners of his eyes, as if the rumors shared about campfires were true, that Byakuren's first apprentice was a youkai manifest in malice with an insatiable appetite for suffering.

However, Stone was tough and unyielding. Old age had not dulled his mind, nor softened his body. The rocks of the earth would last an eon, with time only sifting the weak from the strong. Kiri was a bloody mess of cronyism with a devil at the helm, while Iwa stood, immovable and strong.

They would endure. Kiri would collapse onto itself. They would grow stronger. Kiri would weaken. They would not fall. It would be the Bloody Mist that did.

They would outlast it.

They would.

That devil laughed from where he made play at being an indulgent adult with Water's Crown Prince and that sour-faced apprentice, and Suna's Rasa looked contemplatively at that pink-eyed boy. Friendships were being formed. Damn, this was not a game he liked. Throw in the baby devil and he'd think he was in a level of Hell.

* * *

 **Deep roots are not reached by the frost**

* * *

Kinoe waits for a shoe that does not drop. Kinoe waits for a crisis that does not come. Kinoe waits for a test that needs not be passed. A nun offers him a gourd of drink. He tastes it for poison. Tastes it for other adulterants.

There are none. He drinks crisp cool water. No hint of cloying sweet wine. He does not know what to do. He does not need to do anything. He has been told to listen. He listens. There is nothing to hear. There is no secret to be remembered. The soft murmur of the women about him speak of inconsequential frivolities. Flowers and philosophy. Embroidery and books. Painting and pruning. Cooking.

He examines the garden for weeds. Ties frames for the peas. Plants daikon. The roots must grow deep and strong. The nun shows him how to draw the stamen through a honeysuckle bloom and taste the nectar. He points out it's a waste. The value of the plant is medicinal. There is no point in this refreshment. The woman laughs, stretching her scar—knife, uneven, done with her immobilized. That ma—a target had liked that too. The woman says that a few flowers can always be spared. Especially with the joy they bring. Joy. Unquantifiable. Irrelevant. His muscles twitch without him commanding them to. He smiles.

The Wandering Miko left orders. Infiltrate. Integrate. Understand. His training is for seduction. The women here are not attracted to his body. They care for him. He does not need to hint or tempt. He is confused. He only needs to ask. They will tell him.

Sunlight slants through. There is only a touch of morning mist. None of the heavy incense or dingy murk of then. It is simple. Clean.

This temple overlooks one of the passes through the mountains of Kumo. A spy must be stationed here. Always. The Wandering Miko has explained. Danzo-sama decided that he would be of more use here. She delivered him here on his orders. Danzo-sama is wise. Kinoe is grateful that—grateful that he can be of use. It's pleasantly quiet. There are no strong smells. Moss grows on the stone steps. It is open. Bright. There are no threats. He does not need to calculate. He does not need to manipulate. A tool does not feel.

He is relieved.

* * *

"My son has shown more interest in his future this past day than he has for months combined." The Daimyo's wife set down her teacup with a delicate clink, fingers presumably positioned in the proper manner. "It is, I have gathered, to do with you."

"It was not my intent, Lady Sayuri." I had no more knowledge of etiquette to go on than _don_ _'t show weakness, do not acknowledge anyone as superior_ , so I kept my face smoothly impassive and my voice as constant as the lapping of the tides as I replied.

"In which case, you are owed an apology." Her beautiful face was also expressionless, but there was real or well-feigned emotion in her voice, "I have spent too long guarding my lord from other women, that I have seen too much in the innocence of children. Moreso, I have forgotten, of all the women and ungrown girls beneath the sky, you alone would never be bid by heart or circumstance wed a king."

"I would not?"

She laughed a bitter laugh, "Why would you share a heart with so many vicious sisters? Be locked behind tall walls in enclosed gardens? Fear your beloved's displeasure? See no man but he? I envy you, fey creatures of blood and brutality! Though you wear no silks and eat no delicacies, you kneel before no man, only bow to your general!"

"It is a harsh life." I said, softly, "You son is a child. He laughs and likes and loves and is carefree. I am merely a soldier yet to be. I envy him his wonder. I am not free to have it."

"That is not too great a price." The queen of the land looked into the distance, "But perhaps—you too are a piece on the board, a doll as am I. Yet you are dressed with power—with me, men would rather see a decoration, and I envy you. Do you know when I first knew of your lord father?"

"I would be glad to be enlightened."

"It's my first true memory." She said wistfully, eyes seeing a scene long since passed, "I was young—little older than you are now. The old Daimyo was dead, and the city was all in mourning. Everything was in white—white sackcloth, white cotton, white flax, white silk. There was no color in the world—even the sky was overcast. Then there was a commotion—sounds of surprise swiftly falling silent. My brother and I climbed onto the roofs to see what it was all about, and there she was, a spot of brilliant, vibrant red in the world, in a full furisode, ink-dark hair loosely bound with rubies, lips painted bloody, eyes winged with crimson…"

It would make an impression, a spot of the most vivid, celebratory red amongst the mourning whites. I wasn't sure what she was aiming at, speaking of a woman in red.

"No one knows her name." the woman before me continued, "She introduced herself as joy, come in Kirigakure's name to bury the Daimyo. Father was so shocked that he did not scold us for climbing like hellions afterwards, and said that Masataka-shinno had gone too far at last. Yet that woman came and departed unmolested, and nothing was done. I wanted to be her when I grew up, powerful, striking, unbeholden to inconvenient custom, twisting custom to my purposes—for that memory I demanded that my husband allow me to accompany him, if only to have a chance to meet her here—but this is as high as I can rise."

"You can still choose another life." I said, words tumbling out of my mouth before I could catch them.

"No, I can't." She seemed truly sad at that fact, "I love what power I have too much, and what love in my heart that is not for power is given onto my son. More pressingly, I am where I am by the will of another—it was no coincidence that my greatest rivals found themselves victim to accidents."

"The Fisherman's nets are wide." I agreed, "But if you are willing, I could ask my father who that woman was."

Sayuri smiled at that, "I would be most grateful." She hesitated, perhaps artfully, perhaps sincerely, "Cousin."

* * *

 **You have no idea how tempted I was to do a "the crownless again shall be king" about Ginkanmuri=silver crown and Karatachi having lost her. The pun works, but the plot is unwilling. Alas.**

 **Golden room:** **金屋藏娇** **—** **to treasure/hide Jiao(name) in a golden room. The emperor Wu of Han (** **汉武帝** **) promised to treasure his cousin Chen A'jiao in a room of gold should he take her to wife. There was something about political support involved, and some time after he married her, he divorced his empress for infertility, headstrongness, and witchcraft. You can see how the reference could be read the wrong way.**

 **Handcraft: character for character translation of** **手术** **, literally arts (** **术** **) of the hand(** **手** **), meaning surgery.**

 **"knives hidden in smiles, no needles in the bedding": "** **笑里刀剐皮割肉，绵里针剔髓挑筋** **"** **, knives in smiles flense skin and cut flesh, needles in bedding pick marrow and pull sinew. Meaning rather obvious. Interestingly enough, the latter line about needles in bedding can also be read as silk hiding steel.**

 **Sorrowful World: Ukiyo also means the floating world if written differently. Here, it means the earthly plane of Buddhism. Either way, it's an invitation to retreat into the hermitage if the outer world becomes too terrible for Nono.**

 **"though stone may be broken, its hardness could not be lost, no more than ochre could be deprived of its redness through grinding":"** **石可破也，而不可夺坚；丹可磨也，而不可夺赤"** **. "stone can be broken, yet its hardness can not be seized; cinnabar can be ground, yet its redness cannot be seized". I changed the phrase with the assumption that most people are more familiar with ochre as a pigment.**

 **The Kinoe here isn** **'** **t Yamato. Danzo reuses his names. Kinoe is very young.**


End file.
